Money-or the Lack Thereof
“So why don’t you quit this job if you hate it so much?” One of my co-workers says after listening to me bitch and moan about how much it sucks to be an Assembly Line Portrait photographer.
“And do what?” I say with a sigh.
My fall back plan has always been to be a Writer, which is a great plan aside from the fact that I have never had more than a Letter to The Editor published, and they don’t pay you for those, you know.
I used to think about killing myself in those moments of desperation where the darkness outshone the light, but I have always chickened out at the last moment. I have studied the topic a bit. I’ve read Finial Exit and thought, yeah, I could do that.
I once owned a gun and according to studies, that is the manly way to take yourself out. When I was in high school, I was found of the idea of taking rather a lot of pills, or hanging myself, or well, following in the footsteps of Harold from Harold and Maude. But like Harold, I seem to enjoy that whole being depressed thing a little too much to put an end to it.
I’ve not been overly morose for some time now. The occasional bouts of depression still waft by on the evening air, but I no longer stop and take a deep breath.
My other slightly mad, but slightly possible, fallback plan is to become an Actor. I know, this is even more ridiculous than becoming a writer, at least I have some experience banging out rough drafts, even if I can’t seen to work my way up to a submission copy. Acting, well, it’s one of those things that Young People do, and I am fast falling out of anyone’s idea of what young is.
Still, I do a lot of really good dialects and funny voices-though not quite as funny as say, Sponge Bob or Popeye. Still, I did have an offer from a blog buddy to travel to London and do a bit of ADR for a Doctor Who Christmas Episode. No one leaves American to work in the UK-so there was a tiny possibility that I could have turned this little bit of noise making into some kind of a living. But I didn’t go, and that is one more road I chose not to tread upon.
I have always had a slightly artistic bent, and so being a portrait photographer is itself not a bad choice for a way of making a living. Over the years of Assembly Line Portrait work I have learned a thing or two about the craft of lighting and posing and such. I have also learned a bit about the uses of Photoshop, though that is not something I have ever done professionally.
I still like the idea of London and being a Voice Over Artist-maybe they need someone with that boring middle American voice of mine.
In the meantime, and it sometimes seems that my whole life has been one long meantime, I am still taking Assembly Line Portraits. Some good, some bad, all just a vague blur in my memory. You take a few thousand portraits and they all sort of run together.
I can play with the lights, the backgrounds, the poses. I can steal the occasional idea from a book or a video. In the end the skill sets are not as important as the Subjects. The Photogs that have John Lennon, Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe and the like in their portfolio may not be more skilled than I am-but they had the good sense to want to take portraits that would have staying power because of the Subject matter.
That, of course, is just a copout-as they used to say in the good old days. If I had really wanted to, I could have found a way-maybe I still could. Famous people wander through my neck of the woods all the time, the worst that could happen is they would say bugger off.
The great portrait photographers have Studios and the rich and the famous come to them. Oh I have taken a few portraits of the random rich and famous people, but directly work is not really the same, is it? Even if they did put the photo on the cover of a magazine it wouldn’t have my name, it’d be the Assembly Line Portrait company’s name.
It all goes back to that saying by George Bernard Shaw-The lack of money is the root of all evil. Whatever problems I have would vanish if I could just manage to win the Powerball when the numbers are really up there.
Oh, I know that there have been studies and miserable bastards who win the lotto are still miserable bastards after they win the lotto-but at least they are miserable bastards with money. Well, for a short while until they blow it all.
The real trouble is that being an Assembly Line Portrait photographer makes you lazy, makes you want to sit around reading a book all day and still make a couple of hundred dollars while you’re at it. So I wind my way back to blaming the Company for not keeping me in work-while they are running ads for new Photographers at the same time. Maybe it’s time to start working on that Demo.