Can of Worms: putting the baby on the thistle

I had a bad day yesterday.  The worst in a long time, actually - emotionally and mentally exhausting to the point where all I could do was just hold on long enough to get through my evening, get the kids to bed, and get a good cry in.  Ever have those days?  Yeah - they suck, right? So that was my day.

Online communities are amazing places - they foster a sense of community on a global level that was unheard of until the advent of the internet.  The down side of internet communication is that even with the assistance of emoticons, smileys, and lols, there is always a missing human element, that oh so important factor that allows people to get you because they can read your physical cues, the tone of your voice, and all that other non-verbal stuff that is impossible to parlay with any kind of consistency.  The upshot of that is that social retards like me end up with their foot in their mouth, running around in circles aimlessly trying to point out subtle cues like the use of "I" statements when I state an opinion that someone reads with emotions instead of cold and detached debating skills.  Without meaning to, I can singlehandedly alienate large groups of perfect strangers in seconds flat, because they don't "get" me.

~heavy sigh~

I was added to a photography group the other day, and within 48 hours I had managed to change a relatively harmless question into a raging debate where people got all up in knots because I used an analogy to describe how *I* felt about the issue that someone else read as a personal attack.

~sigh with an oh man headshake~

I know someone will ask, so I'll just go ahead and elaborate.  The question was to CD or not to CD, which inevitably led to the conversation about banding together to make the competition about our skill and style as a photographer not our prices by not including the CD and standardizing prices and and and...

~double sigh~

We all complain that gas prices are fixed.  Nobody likes price fixing.  Yes, it's harsh to liken price-fixing in the photography community to the scene in Titanic where the passengers in steerage are locked below deck to prevent them from taking spots from the first-class passengers on the lifeboats, but this is really, truly, honestly how I feel about the issue.  While I see the logic in many of the arguments people offer in support of standardizing photography prices (it levels the playing field, it makes it more profitable for photographers, etc. etc.) I also think that people who have to (or like to) shop at WalMart will be pantsless if the price for trousers was standardized by Prada, the same way some families and individuals already struggle to pay for pictures.  The fact that upstart photographers are charging less while they build their portfolio is a threat to established photographers is as ridiculous as Prada feeling threatened by WalMart.  The target market is different, plain and simple.  When you have a few minutes, I strongly urge you to check out this TEDtalk by Johanna Blakely - it drives this point home hard and fast.

I am well aware of the fact that there is a desire within the photography industry to return to the good old days where you needed to be not only a lighting expert but a chemist and accountant to run a photography business and it was easy to justify extremely high prices because the cost of operating was HUGE and several manual skillsets were required.  There weren't auto-mode cameras, free editing and accounting software, and professional labs to outsource these things to... and there are always going to be hacks, and there are always going to be people who can create stunning images with a cheap point and shoot, but the bottom line is this: the good old days are gone so you can either try and throw the industry back into the dark age, or shut up and shoot.

I teach photography (the boring stuff like the law of reciprocity and what the rule of thirds is and how to break it) and during one of this year's workshops we ended up having a discussion (briefly) about settting ourselves apart from "the competition."  I don't know why my brain came up with the analogy of a baby on thistle - I guess I love picking on babies because they are small and defenseless - but there it was, and here it is.  Currently, the trends in baby photography include composite digital renderings of babies hanging in knitted things from impossibly thin branches wearing funky hats while propped up on their elbows.  It also involves removing unsightly bags and pimples and skin flakes from newborns to create a very particular aesthetic appeal.  Now, regardless of my personal opinion on how this might be detrimental to the self-images of our children, I realize it's a matter of personal choice so I take no exception with photographers who specialize in creating digital art or parents who choose to commemorate the arrival of their child by having a beautiful piece of digital art created.  It's a free world, right?  But then you end up with people who view this as the industry "standard" and they aspire to mimic these trends.  Pretty soon everyone is out buying knitted things to hang babies in and buying digital skin patches, the market gets saturated, people complain about being copied, blame the newbies who undercut their business for their drop in sales, enter price-fixing arguments... and we're back to square one.  (Psst! If you didn't watch Johanna Blakely's TEDtalk, you REALLY need to go do that now.)  So while the whiners whine, the tough innovate.  We've all seen the smooth-skinned sleeping baby in the knitted thing wearing a long toque while propped on their elbows in a 3 foot tall fig tree.  What we haven't seen is a screaming baby on a bed of thistle.

What it boils down to for me is quite frankly, I'm really tired of hearing the plight of the poor photographer, the wishy washy justifications that we (some photographers) are all supposed to adopt when they (some other photographers) feel they aren't making "enough" and need someone (newbies) or something (the wrong camera) to blame their complacency on (they all copy me) and start looking for ways to squeeze more money out of clients (let's get everyone to restrict the provision of CDs!)  If "enough" for Person A is turning a profit of 150% and that conflicts with Person B whose "enough" is making a couple hundred bucks with the dSLR birthday gift they got that allows them the flexibility to be home during the day with their children, then so be it.  If you are providing wall prints and albums and branded packaging, you have to charge more to cover the cost of operating your business and cater to the wishes of your clientele base so raise your prices; if you are burning a disc of unedited pictures and using a free blog service, you can pass those savings along to your clients.  Beauty!  So, people with large amounts of disposable income are free to spend their money on high priced photography with all the bells and whistles like fancy packaging and private galleries that reflects their desires, and people with small amounts of disposable income are fortunate enough to get amazing custom photographs of their children at a price that fits within their budget from the newbies.  Whatever you're going to do, do it, don't talk about it.  If you believe you are worth $600 a print, build it, and they will come, and if they don't, you're doing something wrong and perhaps you need to remember how and why people shop for photography.  You need to figure out how to put your baby on thistle, and the only way to accomplish that is to just Shut up and shoot.

We're photographers, not doctors in the emergency room.  What we do is both priceless and invaluable.  While some people think that this is a socialist perspective, it is in all actuality the epitome of capitalism, where the economy is driven by competition in a free market.  If we wanted to keep it "fair" we would have to address the larger social issue of elitism through consumerism and change the cultural perception that value is associated with a price tag.  We would therefore need to focus on retaining control of our small home-based photography businesses so that we don't end up like the clothing industry where Prada and Gap are outsourcing the manufacture of their higher-priced goods to the same sweatshops in China as WalMart to maximize profits.  (Like sending images off to third-party post-processors in India for pennies a picture to maintain a high volume of turnover.  Yeah - I went there... remember that whole part about disenchantment a couple of weeks ago?  I'm just getting started on sharing dirty little secrets that support the concept behind this cultural revolution... in the coming weeks expect: women as photographers, the dehumanization of business, and why most pricing strategies suck your will to live.)

Ignorance can certainly be bliss.  And so I walked away from the debate yesterday.  I was feeling defensive and reacted emotionally.  I'm only human, and in a moment of self-preservation I chose to retreat so I could regroup and have this conversation with myself:  Why am I outspoken?  Because I feel passionately about what I do.  Is it going to make me popular?  No, probably not.  Is it going to make people like me?  Well, no, not really.  Is it going to make people think?  Yes.  If I'm going to talk about a revolution, I need people to talk to, to hash out details, to hold honest and open discourse with, to explore the hidden crannies and shed light on the darkest corners.  I want to shake people and when they feel as uncomfortably shaken (and disenchanted) as I do, not to blame me for pointing out the obvious but to take the opportunity to look inside and say, why did this touch a nerve?

I'm never comfortable walking into a room full of photographers - real or virtual - because it's hard to convey my often unpopular ideas without people get their hackles up and wanting to lynch or vilify or ostracize the person (me) who says all those things that it's easier to ignore or justify than admit or acknowledge.  I don't LIKE offending people, but it happens and I don't believe I should have to apologize or feel guilty about not wanting to join the legions of self-pitying photographers sitting around patting one another on the bum, encouraging one another to find ways of driving prices up and using scapegoats for the floundering (or failure) of their businesses - I want to motivate, stimulate, innovate!  Revolutionary ideas that challenge the status quo are never easily welcomed or adopted, especially when our attention is divided between retaining the respect, friendship, and loyalty of our peers and not selling out by being tongue-tied about that which we feel most passionate.  Of course I want people to LIKE me, but more than being liked I NEED to be accepted and respected for who I am, including my social ineptitude, which a group of us have taken to referencing as being loved right down to the pores on our polyps.

Once upon a time, women had no right to vote because women weren't legally recognized as people.  Once upon a time, it was legal to own human beings as slaves.  Once upon a time, a dude named Jesus was hung on a cross because his idea of peace and love made people revolt against being raped and pillaged by their political leaders.  And before anyone points out that women's suffrage was a long time ago or the fact that I'm not a descendent of black slaves or thinks I'm delusional because I just compared myself to Jesus - they are merely references to people who spread ideas that sparked monumental social change.  What we see now as barbaric or narrow-minded or discriminatory was once the norm - what if they had kept their mouths shut and thrown in the towel?

So.  I will pull my tail out from between my legs (and my head out of my ass) and return.  I'm quite possibly (definitely) going to say things that will probably (hopefully) make people think (and re-evaluate) their perspective.  If it makes people feel uncomfortable or offended, then it's likely not because of what I said but a reaction to something that is felt or understood deep within oneself, something that is in disagreement with what that which we've been told is the accepted cultural norm.  Turning a blind eye is easy; the value of a good debate lies not within its ability to change minds or sway opinions, but to open our eyes, and in doing so broaden the scope of and clarify our understanding of why we think and feel what we think and feel.  It's about putting the baby on the thistle so that people stop and say, Wow - I've never seen it that way before.