It took me 10 years to become a visual artist...

Well it looks like we are going to make it to 2009, and we are soon headed out to ring in the New Year with some close friends in a very low key fashion. Today, I've thought a lot about the past year and the challenges and excitement that 2008 brought.

But I haven't just been thinking about the year in review. I've been thinking more about the past decade. Earlier today, a photographer commented "Congratulations on becoming a videographer:) on my Facebook page." I wasn't sure whether it was snide or funny, but the fact is that it really made me think about the challenges we, as photographers, have faced for the past decade and what we had to do to grow both financially and personally to survive, or better yet, succeed.

In the year 1999 I was just a photographer. It was simple. I owned 3 Hasselblad's and several lenses. I had Canon F1's and lenses to boot. I had a small darkroom and a small studio. It was all so easy in retrospect. All I had to do was take pictures and send the work to a lab to be printed. If I had something I really wanted to focus on, I could work in my darkroom and hone some special work and that was the extent of my job or profession. Yet to the outsider it seemed so mysterious and exciting and intriguing.

In 2000 I purchased a 6 megapixel digital camera with one ISO of 80 and no LCD. It was the Kodak 460. At the time, the going price for a new one was $30 grand. I had taken a leap of faith in a new direction. Many top pros at the time made fun of us saying that digital wasn't art and that it would never become mainstream. That is a day I'll always remember...

By 2008 I have become a graphic designer, a color expert, a master print artist, a Flash developer, a retouch artist, a Photoshop guru, a sound editor, a master book maker, and the list goes on an on. Now, it looks like we are now in deep with motion picture as well with these new inventions of hybrid video and still cameras, and 2009 is sure to be a rebirth of photography that will go in directions that I never could have imagined in 1999. Do I have a choice not to adopt these changes? Yes, I guess I do. 

But, seems to me that choosing not to change would be a shame. My dad, who was my business partner at the time at the age of 60, was right on board when I was ready to purchase my first digital camera. Did he think I was crazy? Probably... But that didn't stop him from adopting digital, and I learned by example that you have to evolve or your a sitting duck. You either lead or you live in the past, and I have followed that example every step of the way.

So, if I must have a title in 2009, I guess I would prefer the term Visual Artist over photographer, videographer, cinematographer, graphic designer, Flash developer, retouch artist, etc... It is better this way as it is short and sweet, and this way when people ask me "what do you do for a living" I won't have to draw a blank or be labeled for better or for worse. I simply create visual works of art, sometimes with motion, sometimes photographic, sometimes in print, and sometimes on screen. 

See you all in the New Year.. All the best to you and yours!