max s. gerber(the latest shot)

the photo blogosphere is a somewhat crowded place these days. if you want to find a lot of pontificating about the pitfalls and excesses of the photo business, you can rest assured there’s someone out there writing about it. or commenting on it. or profiting from it. anyone who has spent any amount of time in this business has likely come face to face with just how difficult it is to make a living as a photographer. complaining about it on a public forum such as this is almost too easy and i’ve generally tried to avoid doing it. most of the time i even try to avoid reading too much of what other people write. these things can get depressing fast.

still, there’s one blog that i keep coming back to consistently. i know it’s probably bad form to spend time here tooting the horn of another photographer, but in this case i really can’t help it. jonathan saunders’ blog, i like to tell stories, is everything i wish all the other photo blogs could be. ballsy, personal, touching, sometimes random, insightful. . . so for the very few people who look at my site, do yourself a favor and give some time to jonathan saunders as well. i was inspired first to write something about a post jonathan did last week, but then i had some server trouble over the weekend and things got delayed. i’m forced to write about it here because jonathan’s blog doesn’t accept comments. that’s because it’s not for you. it’s for him. which is part of what makes it so great.

all of us who work editorially can very easily get caught up in the format and style of the work we do that supports us. jonathan saunders reminds me that i should constantly be taking pictures for no reason at all, and not lose sight of the fact that we all do this job because it’s so wonderful to make pictures in the first place.

anyway, the post i was initially going to comment on was this, about the endless trap of promotional mailers. all photographers do them, though i still find that most photo editors and art directors don’t really care too much. jonathan speculates that over the past decade or so he’s sent out 41 different postcards at a cost of approximately $19,000 to not much effect. now those in marketing will say that each individual postcard doesn’t matter too much, that name recognition is cumulative and builds up over time. i certainly hope this is true. every time i send out a postcard or a mailer of some kind i have the vague (or not so vague) feeling that what i’m actually doing is putting all my money in a paper bag, lighting the bag on fire and throwing it out my car window. the only ones who consistently win are the offset printers and the US postal service.

jonathan’s post was called “the system is broken” and it does seem that way sometimes. my friends who have Real Jobs are often amazed and appalled at the way the photo business works. corporal bennett’s response to jon’s post: “It really DOES seem like photographers by and large are motivated by fear of failure and will blindly spend any amount of money that they think might help make them successful. . . There are few other groups of professionals that are willing to almost put themselves out of business to stay in business.”

but then again, i look at today’s post on iliketotellstories.com and i’m reminded of why even though i don’t really know jonathan saunders personally (we’ve exchanged a few emails and brief IMs) just the fact that his site exists makes me feel better. it’s not even any one particular picture or one particular idea. it’s just that that guy is, plain and simple, an artist. no bullshit. i’ve long been one of those guys who would travel to see a woman who didn’t really care so much, so this post hit home for me. thanks, jon.

in other news, i sold my car a couple weeks ago. still getting used to the new one. this is one of the last pictures of my old car. i need a haircut.