[Leica] RE: Fun and interesting...

["Birkey, Duane" <dbirkey@hcjb.org.ec>]

How does a pro keep it fun and interesting...

I suppose it depends on how much you make and how much you are working and
what type of work you are doing...

I am the photographer for a non-profit association in Ecuador... I work like
a dog and the pay isn't great, but the benefits are eternal... as we like to
say....

Most of my time is spent doing things other than taking photographs.  I
spend a lot of time in the darkroom, trips to lab... waiting around for some
one to show up, filing images... (my favorite), billing and now with the
advent of film scanners, I'm spending most of my time in front of a
computer. 

The problem of course is finding time to shoot personal images and the
really hard one is finding time to print them.....   The amount of work I do
for myself is very minimal... I'm always looking for images to fill a
request etc...  I had set aside a day every two weeks for personal work...
I'm lucky to take one every two months unless a visitor comes....  I have a
4x5 for personal work.... but that gets left in office most of time.... Part
of buying a Leica M-system was to seperate work from fun.... except I use it
for both....  

To be honest... I put a lot of energy into trying to make good images out of
sometimes pathetic situation.  Most of this morning was spent at one of our
medical clinics where the working space of the room was about 4 feet across
and we had two interns and a teaching doc... The door hit me about every
three minutes... Talk about fun... Anyhow I seem to sort of crash afterward
a day or morning of shoots like these... it is hard to get excited to go out
and do personal work... especially if you have a lot of work pressing....

On the other hand... I went to photograph the school in the marginal
neighborhood of that same clinic... it was fun getting kids to smile and pay
to attention to their teacher.... actually that proved to be impossible to
get more than a few at any given time.... But I could have stayed all day if
it had been possible...

I think you have to find a certain percentage of your work that is fun....
whether it is meeting people, feeling good about helping someone, making
someone smile, taking pride in your work, or just the satisfaction of
getting a great moment on film etc..  

I try to learn as much about any subject as possible while photographing....
whether it is spinal surgery... unusual bacteria, historic places, family
history, animal behaviour, identifying species.. etc... find something that
interests you with each subject and expand your knowledge.  I've learned to
identify a lot of medical stuff... comes from seeing unusual cases from
every area....  The other thing I like is that no two days are the same....
but sometimes I miss a routine as well...

So... Personally... I had more fun doing photography as a hobby and I did do
20x more personal work back then.... but I enjoy photography as a way of
life more than I enjoyed working in retail sales and management.

Duane Birkey
HCJB World Radio 
Quito Ecuador

http://members.tripod.com/~Duane_Birkey/index.html