Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Love

















There are times as a photographer when you feel , oh...less than satisfied...and there are times when you feel just in love with the medium and all that surrounds it. Right now is the love: spent yesterday and a day last week shooting an editorial project I could really explore with real people and no spin controlling, working on an estimate with Tidepool on a potentially rewarding project, got a nice note from a p.e. about possibly using a Echolilia photograph as an illustration, and preparing giant 40 x 40 prints for a forthcoming show at Todd / Browning Gallery in Los Angeles. Why is this great? I guess it's the mix of Art and Commerce that feels good to juggle when it is working...and just trying to dodge any shoot that could lead to a massive dent in one's creative libido. Don't want to dent that thing, don't want to walk with a limp...but when it happens it usually takes a while to repair...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice to hear, tim. I do know the feeling, and i wish it came around more often. Too often most of my time seems to get devoured by admin junk. I am glad you are finding that balance. I feel I am on the cusp of being there myself.

Let me know when the LA show is up.

Ethan

Timothy Archibald said...

Ethan-

The reason I'm writing about it is because "the love" so rarely appears!

Lets see...a few weeks back I lost a big ad job I was convinced I'd get, I had a talent agency calling and complaining about an invoice discrepancy, a major piece of gear broke and it couldn't be replaced, I wasted hours stuck on at&t blackberry tech support for emails that were not coming in to tell me that I didn't get said job, etc.

How's that?

Anonymous said...

Hey TA-

Do you find that you're able to navigate the whole editorial/commercial world and the art world to your satisfaction most of the time? In other words, are you feeling the love most of the time, or is that more of a rarity?

You seem to really balance the two in a way that's rare. How do you manage?

Timothy Archibald said...

Anony-

No, like above, the love is a rare moment where it all comes together and for a moment, in your own head and maybe on your blog, you actually feel like a photo/art/player or something. So, ya, thats why I wrote about it I guess.

But as far as the Art World thing goes...I don't really have an Art Career. I like to be in shows and the Sex Machine book was a great experience and I'd love to do another book, but the whole thing isn't a career...meaning something I can live off of. I need to have a job, and that job is being a working photographer. I like to think about my personal projects, think about art, make the work and use it as a balance or something, but any impression you may have of it being a "career" is a smokescreen created by the blogosphere. In a way it is probably disappointing, cuz everyone wants to be an artist, but its also liberating in a way as well...for me at least. Make sense?

Anonymous said...

Tim...

Congrats on the show...

Please let us know when the open is?

We'd love to come up and say hey..

Paul, Nicki and Kate