The biggest take-away for me from this year’s Telluride Photo Festival was… drumroll please….

….Shoot for yourself.  Not what you think editors/ agencies/ clients want… just keep shooting the way you see the world.

Sounds pretty basic, right?  Well if you’re a full time professional photographer, trying to support your family, this basic concept can get lost.  Super lost.

It’s easy to go out and copy the style of the day… what’s running in the magazines and advertisements.  That takes technical expertise, but not talent or creativity.  And we as artists can get lost in the game of chasing trends and dollars.

That’s not to say that you aren’t going to need to adjust and grow and learn.  Don’t get me wrong.  And it also doesn’t mean that aren’t going to be assignments that require us to set aside our agendas and opinions to get the job done the way the client needs it.

I think the point here is that we as artists are unique.  In fact, often the only thing that sets us apart from the bajilliun other “photographers” out there is our eye’s particular way of seeing and interpreting our world.  So what I’m saying is, don’t lose that.

It’s not a narcissistic rejection of everyone/ everything else.  Selfish pursuit of personal fulfillment.  No, quite the contrary.

You get hired for your distinct and unique perspective.  What really becomes difficult now is incorporating your style, your eye into what your client/ editor needs.

And this is what I tried to shift my focus to over the last five weeks on the road.

As I mentioned in The Active Landscape post, it’s good for us to push ourselves, grow, and even adapt to the market.  But what good does it do if we lose our personal vision and style in the process.  Spoiler alert… it doesn’t.

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.  ~ Jonathan Swift

So keep growing, learning, and challenging the way you see, but don’t lose that which makes you unique!  No one else sees the world the way you do.

~ andrew