Digital BW, The Print

My Fred Picker experience to add to the collective consciousness:

In the late 80¹s I was working as a photographer¹s assistant and became
disenchanted with the future prospects of my being a commercial photographer
and producing images to someone else¹s blueprints. I didn¹t want to be an
image mechanic. The act of creating images was far too personal to outsource
the creativity to realize another¹s vision.

I was considering graduate schools to attend to pursue a masters degree in
photography, re-group and figure out my next steps and decided to call up a
few photographers whose work I admired for their advice.

I called Zone VI and asked if I might arrange a time to talk to Fred. I was
immediately connected to him and began to tell him my story and situation.
Fred¹s response sticks with me to this day and I am constantly re-quoting it
in unlikely situations.

Fred uttered an audible sigh and said, ³Well, James do you want me to
bullshit with you for twenty or thirty minutes or do you want me to get
right to the point?²

Considering this an entirely rhetorical question, and taken aback by his
frankness, I smiled on my end of the phone and replied, ³I guess I would
like to get right to the point.²

And of course, Fred spared no words getting on with it. ³You need to get a
job making enough money and giving you enough time to make the pictures you
want to make. I am not a photographer for a living, I run a mail order
business that happens to service the photography industry. It gives me
enough money and enough time to fly to the places in the world where I like
to take pictures. It isn¹t about doing what you love to make a living, but
making a living to do what you love.²

That was it. I am sure some other pleasantries were exchanged, but if they
were I don¹t remember them. I remember the pure simple honesty in the
delivery which was not harsh, crotchety or brutal, but simple and accurate
and above all efficient.

I ended up going to graduate school after all and I must say it did very
little for me creatively or professionally in terms of preparing me for a
further career. After slogging through a brutally difficult effort producing
a master¹s thesis where I had to exhaustively justify every creative
decision in my ³body of imagery² I graduated, entered the work force and
stashed every camera I had in a closet for about five years.

After that point, with a growing  career tangentially related to art and
photography I was able to get the equipment back out with no agenda or
distractions and resume photography with the same pure, emotional attachment
I had as an amateur.

Now I am making images for myself, unashamedly taking pictures of children
and flowers and urban images where there is virtually nothing new to say
artistically and not in any way interested in its commercial potential, and
I am loving every minute of it.

Digital B&W has returned me to the days of personal expression and discovery
that fed my soul and got me interested in this stuff in the first place.

I appreciate Fred for his frankness and insight which has proven just as
true for me as it was for him.

James Haney


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