The More Things Change, the More They Change

Perhaps like many of you, especially in these financially tight times, I generally keep an eye open for things I can do to make a couple of extra bucks.

As you might guess, I've set some self-imposed restrictions on the things I'm interested... make that willing to do. They cannot A) steal too much of my time; B) require ridiculous amounts of effort; C) take me too far off-course from the course I've set for myself.

What sorts of things do I either keep an eye open for or both of them shut to? Well, I'm definitely not looking to work part-time at WalMart as a greeter or do anything of that nature. Actually, I won't do much of anything that isn't, in some way, connected to shooting cameras or is photography-related or involves helping others learn, develop, and enhance their shooting and production skills. All of that, of course, is in addition to shooting gigs, whether they're inside or outside the genres I most-often work in.

Oh yeah. Speaking of won'ts or don'ts, I also don't and won't shoot weddings. That's not meant in any way to dis those who do shoot weddings. In fact, my hat's off to you. Weddings are hard freakin' work. Oftentimes, with incredible pressure attached! (Bridezillas, little control of the event or its subjects, no chance of re-shoots if the pictures suck.) Not for me, thank you very much.

Just recently, I noticed someone on Twitter posted something about a photography site looking for guest bloggers; make that PAID guest bloggers.

Cool! Right up my alley.

Or so I thought.

When I visited the site, there was, as Tweeted, a page announcing they were looking to pay guest bloggers to write about photography. Specifically, the aspects of photography they were looking for bloggers to write about were as follows:

1. Photoshop
2. Lightroom
3. Digital Asset Management
4. Lightroom and Photoshop Add-Ons
5. Hardware
6. Business of Photography
7. Social Media and Social Networking

Wow! I've been making a big chunk of my living doing this a long time but I'm not really qualified to write about any of that stuff. Yeah, I could touch on some of it but, for the most part, I don't know what I'd blog about within those subject ranges, leastwise in ways that might be compelling enough or informative enough to appeal to too many readers. I did think it interesting that, other than the hardware and business stuff, you wouldn't need to go back too many years to find that all of those other things would barely register on photography's version of a Richter Scale or Geiger Counter, if at all.

Even more interesting, to me at least, was that they (the site) didn't seem interested in having anyone write about shooting pictures. You know, the part of photography where a photographer picks up a camera and shoots photographs. It made me sit back and wonder if the photography part of photography has become the least important aspect of photography in the digital photography age?

If so, no wonder photography is such a tough business these days!

Besides there being way too many shooters all reaching for a piece of the pie, a pie that hasn't gotten any larger and might even be smaller, today's photographers have to learn and understand so much more! They need to know about all kinds of software applications, workflows, storing and managing pictures on computer devices, social media and cyber-networking, all kinds of crap! Much of it having little or nothing to do with actually picking up a camera and shooting some kick-ass photos. Now I know why so many of today's new breed of photographers seem more interested in apps and quick tips for making the shooting part of photography the part that's easiest and most automated.

It used to be all you needed (to kick off a career as a photographer) was some gear, the ability to shoot good pictures with that gear, and some basic business and marketing savvy. Incredibly, make that incredibly sadly, I can almost visualize a time, probably not too far distant, when learning and practicing the art and craft of photography becomes the least important part of being a photographer.

Actually, it sometimes seems like we're already there.

The sexy lady at the top is Kimberly. I was going for a subtle, retro-bordello look... not that I know anything about bordellos, retro or otherwise. (Click it to enlarge it.)