The Amateur Triumphant - Part Three

Well, you've finally done it - closed the doors of the professional practice and sent a farewell notice to the ATO. You've tossed the letterhead, invoice forms, and business cards into the fire and told the accountant that you will be doing your own lying in the future. You are set to be a real amateur.

No turning back. No doing jobs for money. From now on the only compensation you will be receiving will be "exposure", "a drink", and "recognition". And the occasional bucket of lemons from Mr. Valducci's tree. There will be more lemons than drinks.

The demands on you will change - while no-one can compel you to deliver the goods on time, they will expect you to hand over every raw file that you have taken so that they can have them printed at Officeworks. This might have seemed unreasonable when you were a working professional but that was when you were a person with a camera in hand - now you are a camera with a person attached. The camera has remained sharp but you have become fuzzy.

Do not despair. While you no longer will have money, you can still have fun. By all means turn over the raw files to the person who demands them. Just copy them all into 1993BFG.3.0PiX format on a 5" floppy disc and hand it over. And a pleasant smile when you do so doesn't hurt.

Your own photography will improve greatly in the future. You will no longer be asked to make tins of cabbage ends or anorexic teenagers look appetising. No one will ask you to take 3.2 metric tonnes of lighting equipment up the top of Bluff Knoll in relays to capture the magic of toilet paper. You can go to a wedding and drink.

Better still, you can go to a wedding and watch the wedding photographers at work and let them watch you watching them. If you know how to let out good strangled shriek or do a very slow face palm you can have fun all afternoon. A slow wink also does the trick.

Are you worried about the piles of gear that are still stacked in the locked cabinet? Well, if you haven't finished paying for them you need not worry too much longer. The leasing and finance companies will be sorting that/you out in short order. If it is yours freehold, you can either use it to take immensely detailed photo essays of spit or you can take it to the camera markets that they hold every three months. You can then bring it home again.

There is an opportunity for the new amateur to join the art scene. This can be effected on-line or in person by attending at local art groups. Sociability, kindness, and the ability to see good in everyone is an asset in this sort of affair. It is rewarding if you are prepared to learn the language of Artspeak and are not afraid to try a few halting phrases. " Awful Dreck " and " Ghastly Daub " are useful...

Finally, have you thought of finally settling down and writing the Great Australian Novel? Or the Definitive Outback Photoshoot? Or setting fire to paddocks? They are all equally attractive propositions, and as you are a free agent you can turn them over in your mind...

Onward. Excelsior!

Uncle Dick

Achieving Amateur Status - Part Two

Once the decision is taken and the die cast, the bridge crossed, and the Gordian Knot cut, it is time to decide how to become an amateur. Here are some first steps:

a. Get a photo vest. If you are an urban type, get a black one with lots of pockets. If you'll be out in the country choose a grey or khaki one with lots of pockets. If you are going to haunt the motorcycle and drag races get a blue denim one with lots of pockets.*

b. If you cannot afford a vest just get lots of pockets. You can wear them like a Mexican bandit's ammunition belt. Be prepared for Pancho Villa jokes.

c. Get a baseball cap. It does not matter whether you wear it forward, backwards, or sideways but you must wear it at all times. If they attempt to take it off you in church, change religions.

d. You no longer will worry about taking extra camera bodies, lenses, and batteries to an assignment. You'll no longer have to trail three roller cases full of lighting heads and extension cords. And you'll no longer have a poorly-paid assistant to set up, clean up. and throw up for you. Celebrate by paring your outfit down to one pre-1970 SLR with a standard lens and a smudged UV filter. Encase it in a brown leather ever-ready case with extra pockets down the strap for rolls of film and cleaning tissues.

e. Stock up on Ilford FP4 and Kodak Gold film.  Keep it on the back parcel shelf of your car.

f. Join 15 internet forum groups that deal with different camera brands. Play one off against the other by researching the minute details of each new product and making spread-sheet charts of the reasons why each one of them is worse than the other.

g. Go to random weddings and obstruct the professional photographer. You know precisely where they need to be to get the best coverage for the event and you are now in a position to prevent it.

h.  Practise your computer skills by making composited HDR shots of babies with harsh cross lighting and graffiti in the background - preferably against a pebble beach with lowering clouds. Print these with 100% sharpening and push the finished results under the doors of the local portrait studios. Eventually you will get a scream.

i. Haunt the shops. No, really, put on a white bedsheet and come in through the front door making a "Woooooo" sound. The staff get little enough amusement as it is and they will look kindly on you.

j. Tell people how you did it in your day. If your day was just before last weekend they may listen to you. If your day was just before last century they may throw chairs at you. You can sell the chairs for a decent price.

k. Make up one of those inkjet-printed plain paper advertisements offering cut-rate photography "for exposure" with a little fringe of tear-off phone numbers at the bottom. Tape one to the wall in the waiting area of every portrait studio in the town when the receptionist isn't looking.

l. Offer to lead a workshop photo tour expedition seminar event to a town in the bush that has no store, petrol station, pub, or supply of running water.

m. Write articles on photography and submit them to Dolly Magazine, The Watchtower, and Hansard.

* The pink lace vest is a dangerous choice...

Uncle Dick

Turning Amateur - Part One

Every working or professional photographer I have talked to - from the lowly international Magnum superstars to the most famous of the Santa Photos shooters in Boise, Idaho - secretly nurtures one supreme aspiration. They have a dream to become a full-time amateur.

All through their working lives you can see them shooting envious glances out the sides of the viewfinder at the chaps in the photo vests who are fiddling with the brown leather ever-ready cases festooned with lens hood holders. It is sad to say that if it weren't for the pressures of money and responsibility they would chuck their day job and reach for their goal.

I guess it is like a lot of things in life - they are set early onto the treadmill and there are few opportunities to get off. They get trained in photography somehow - university, technical school, or trade - and find a job and start to take pictures for money and then before they know it they are hooked. They want to eat every day and own more than one shirt and sleep in a bed. The sad slow decline into financial comfort and professional success starts and they never really see themselves slipping further and further into affluence. One day they wake up and have it all, and no where to put it, and another carton of it arriving Monday...

Then they long for the wonderful world of the amateur. No deadlines. No live lines. No lines at all.

No need to justify their camera purchases to the accountant or the ATO. No need to own the best and fastest before a competitor owns it. No need to go round and slander the other professionals in hopes of getting a client away from them. No need to sit there in a bare studio looking at a bare appointment book and whistling to keep up the spirits. Heck, when you are an amateur you can go to Dan Murphy's and buy spirits at 10:00 in the morning and no-one cares...

Oh, the siren call of the hot photographic news story...and how sweet it is when the siren goes on by their house and they don't have to get out of bed to follow it.

And the charm of attending a rustic wedding in a paddock in the wheatbelt. Amongst the grasshoppers and dust and hayseeds...and they won't have to change lenses because they're a guest instead of a worker. And they don't have to make small talk with the hayseeds unless they want to.

That wonderful dawn at 3:00 AM in summer. Not a breath of wind. Clouds glorious. The roseate fingers of light making for perfect balance between outside light and a desperate real estate agent. No need to haul three light stands and a Skylite reflector up to a third storey. No need to climb on a ladder to get verticals right. No need to spend the rest of the day spotting out the cat wee from the walls. Architecture photography as it was meant to be enjoyed...by someone else.

Well, now that I have set the glowing picture ( and it isn't all just halation ) read on in one of our next weblog columns for how to achieve this. Remember: Life was meant to be more than just getting the gravy spots off a sensor.

Uncle Dick

Please Accept Our Congratulations

Here at Camera Electronic we wish to offer sincere congratulations to the winners of this year's most prestigious Western Australian photography awards. Here is a brief listing of the winners and runner's up but if you would like to see the actual pictures on your computer there is a link here.

2015 AIPP Epson WA Professional Photographer of the Year...John Woodhouse


2015 AIPP WA Wedding Photographer of the Year...Nathan Maddigan

finalists: Erica Serena, Ross Wallace


2015 AIPP WA Landscape Photographer of the Year...Tony Hewitt

finalists: Scott McCook, Vittorio Natoli


2015 AIPP WA Illustrative Photographer of the Year...John Woodhouse

finalists: Leah Kennedy, Simone Addison


2015  AIPP WA Portrait Photographer of the Year...Nic Duncan

finalists: Steve Wise, Alan Di Bella


2015 AIPP WA Travel Photographer of the Year...Christian Fletcher

finalists: Rebecca Johansson, Jimmy Teo


2015 AIPP WA Family Photographer of the Year...Lisa Ivandich

finalists: Kristy Mannix, Tina Urie


2015 AIPP WA Commercial Photographer of the Year...Garry Sarre


2015 AIPP WA Documentary Photographer of the Year...Jimmy Teo

finalists: Johannes Reinhart, Daniel White


2015 AIPP WA Creative Photographer of the Year...Leah Kennedy

finalists: Simone Addison, Johannes Reinhart


2015 AIPP WA Album/Book of the Year...Nathan Maddigan

finalists: Erica Serena, Michelle Kiddie


2015 AIPP WA Emerging Photographer of the Year...Rob Petric

finalists: Gerrie Cooney, Missy Grant


2015 AIPP WA Highest Scoring Print...Leah Kennedy


2015 AIPP Epson Signature Worthy Award...Vittorio Natoli


2015 AIPP WA Student Photographer of the Year...Lisa Anfuso

finalists: Caitlin Walker, Liam Jones


2015 AIPP WA Print Handlers Award...Alan McDonald


2015 AIPP WA John Whitfield-King Award...Nic Duncan

The Initial Diagnosis

AIPP
WAEPPA
WAPITI
AIPP
WAPF
AAPP
APS
ACMP

Here's a puzzle for you to work on while riding the train to work - look at the list of organisations above and correctly identify the words represented by the letters.

Be careful - many of these fine organisations use similar names and ideas but arrange them in different ways.

We can give you a general hint - they have something to do with photography, competitiveness, and money.

And one includes a number of large hairy beasts who roam about and cause trouble by knocking down fences and rooting up vegetable gardens. Once a year they may be legally shot and eaten...and make superb gravy.