Winter Wideshots

Mit Kamera und Stativ durch den verschneiten Dorfkern von Niederzwehren.

(zum Vergrößern klicken)

Copyright © 2008 Jan Günther, alle Rechte vorbehalten.

How to make it as a photographer.

Foto: Chase Jarvis

In einem Artikel auf seinem Blog hat der großartige amerikanische People- und Lifestylefotograf Chase Jarvis versucht, die Frage How can I make it as a photographer? zu beantworten und eine erstaunlich simple und wahre Lösung gefunden. Ich möchte den Text hier einmal im Original zitieren.

1. Be Undeniably Good. Last year, in an interview with Charlie Rose, the famous comedian Steve Martin gave this advice to anyone trying to make it in any field: Be undeniably good. When people ask me how do you make it in show business or whatever, what I always tell them and nobody ever takes note of it ‘cuz it’s not the answer they wanted to hear — what they want to hear is here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script, here’s how you do this — but I always say, „Be so good they can’t ignore you.“ If somebody’s thinking, „How can I be really good?“, people are going to come to you. It’s much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s simple, but profound and unarguably true. And in case someone responds to that suggestion with, „Ya, but how do I get to be so good that people can’t ignore what I’m doing?“, then I’ll drop part 2, complements of Malcolm Gladwell:

2. Dedicate at least 10,000 hours to whatever it is you’re looking to master. In his enlightening talk at the 2008 AIGA Business Design Conference, about innovation and misconceptions regarding what it takes to become a success, Gladwell discussed this concept from his new book Outliers: The Story of Success. Genius and creativity don’t necessarily spring forth unbidden, they require time and support to experiment, try and even fail.“ I found his talk really entertaining, and I’d imagine you might too.

What’s fun about photography, of course, is that anyone can pick up a camera these days and make great pictures, straight outta the gate. No brainer, really accessible, relatively little effort, nice pictures. I love that about photography – it’s why everyone has a camera these days. The technology is really wonderful.

But, if you want to „make it“, whatever that means, I think you need to start by being undeniably good. And if you can’t intuit how to be undeniably good, then start by dedicating 10,000 hours to it. That will get you where you want to be.

Neonshots 2009

Die Neonshotsserie führe ich nun schon seit gut zwei Jahren kontinuierlich weiter. Mit dem neuen Jahr 2009 wird auch eine neue Auflage von Portraits erscheinen. Geschossen werden Menschen allen Alters, alle auf die exakt gleiche Weise und im selben Look, sodass eine Art Gesichterkatalog entsteht. Einen Vorgeschmack möchte ich mit den folgenden beiden Bildern geben. 

Models: Jan und Felix (von links). © 2008 Jan Günther, alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Kira

Schnellshoot mit Kira!

Copyright © 2008, Jan Günther, alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Analogue

Ich habe versucht, mit ziemlich normalen Motiven den analogen Schwarzweisslook im 6×6-Format zu erfassen. Rauschend!

Copright © 2008 Jan Günther