BenoitAubry

Every so often, when anyone feels they've exhausted all avenues, crossed the T's and dotted the I's, they feel like there's nothing left to give. Our exasperation makes us vulnerable to second guessing and a litany of wtf.

It's one of the great delusions of life to think that everything ends well if we follow a certain model of actions that the results are 100% guaranteed. There is no swing of fate, no pot of gold, no certainty of success, no assurance of our destiny even though that's what our parents wanted to make us believe.

We can only do our bit to succeed, even to win the smallest battles. Much of the outcome depends on outside influences which must be in harmony with our desires.

Along the way, there will be disappointments and moments of despair which leaves us in the throes of discouragement. This is what happened to me.

I've been going at this for over 35 years. Despite bringing forward the most refined work I can muster under whatever conditions I've thrown myself into, in the grand scope of things, recognition has been few and my victories have been fewer. But no matter how many times I've failed to come out on top, I keep going back for more. That's life.

Life is full of big disappointments and sometimes, small victories by comparison. My own life, so far, has proven this in abundance. I made the mistake of fading towards the notion that there is such a thing as destiny or fate, in a grand scheme of things. That took me off-track and in a show of arrogance, a sign of weakness, I lost my focus. Or in photographic terms, the elements of my lens popped out of alignment.

And that's why I have friends. It's why I need friends to ground me when things start weirding out and my self-doubts surface like the proverbial snake in the grass. That's why I have my best friend, who will be joining me in a couple of days, to help me re-calibrate my elements  when I'm blinded by my own bullshit.

Humility can be a beautiful thing when used properly. It allows us to learn from our mistakes and to do better the next time around. As John Chricton said to Dargo... "Life is like a wheel. Sometimes you're at the bottom, in the muck and you can barely breath. And sometimes you're on top, near the sun where everything is clear. You just have to wait for the wheel to come around again."

I'm just going to wait for the wheel.

(edit: August 30th, 2008) I'm feeling a bit better but the following was just a response of mine to the many disappointments of a professional photographer. I seemed to have made a huge mistake in using dA as a gauge for the quality of my work. This journal isn't about Deviantart. I need to really thank those of you who are supporting me. Your responses helped me get through this.

(Without prejudice towards dA)

Today, I was considering giving up photography for good.

Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a professional photographer. At some level.

At first, it was photojournalism. More specifically, war photography because the images that struck me were from the Vietnam war.

I'm sure you've seen the shot by Nick Ut of a girl running down the road with second degree burns from napalm explosions on her village or the chilling image of Nguyen Ngoc Long executed a prisoner, taken by Eddie Adams on the street in 1968 during Tet Offensive, with his hand gun.

Those photographs, more than any other moved the north American peace movement to start questioning the validity of the Vietnam war. They literally changed the world. I admired the journalists' Nick Ut's and Eddie Adams' mettle.

First of all, for being there to record the ground war that was happening. Second of all, for not giving the world a polished sterilized view of the war to make believe that it was something the DoD in the US wanted the population to see. Although war photography hit me pretty hard, I came across other genres that captivated my imagination.

Since then, I looked obsessively at magazines recognized for their use of photography like LIFE, Time, National Geographic, Paris Match even though I couldn't afford to get a real camera or build a darkroom. In the 70s, it was a very expensive habit, both in time and in money. My parents weren't very supportive either at first. Even after allowing me to get a Soviet-made Zenit-E SLR at 16 years of age, they were skeptical. Their pronounced unrelinquished support only came almost 30 years later. But in all fairness to them, it was an incredibly disastrous set of events that kept them busy.

Still, my passion grew and I sought out works by other photographers, who at that time, were the cream of the crop.

I discovered Yousuf Karsh through the famous Winston Churchill portrait, where he actually went up to the Roaring Lion and snagged the cigar out of his mouth. Pretty ballsy. That photograph is the most published portrait in the magazine world.

Jean-Loup Sieff from France, a staple at Harper's Bazaar. David Hamilton who was selling various posters of young women in ballet costumes by the tens of thousands in regular book stores. He also produced a few successful feature-length movies and about a dozen books which are commanding respectable prices on eBay. His style of soft focus natural lighting set a standard for erotic images and such notably classy publications as the now defunct Penthouse.

Then I got into Rolling Stone magazine and found amazing photographers like Herb Ritts, Jim Marshall, Richard Avedon and who hasn't heard of Annie Leibovitz, who remains my current living favourite. Although I became accustomed to their styles, my learning curve was to try and emulate their quality. It's this way that I realised just how good these artists were.

I'm not just talking about composition. I'm talking imaginative technique, mastering lights in a way that I had never seen before or since. Capturing personality of the subject to the point where anyone who saw the photograph would say "Yeah! Wow! That's a really good shot of ... " so and so. They deserved to be published. And I wanted to be like that.

Unlike music or movies or even writing, success with photography can be a very long and lonely road. Unless you're really well connected, it's a very private journey with little rewards unless you know someone who knows someone who can see your vision. You're basically trying to sell images one person at a time.

With music and movies, you have audiences. For books, you have publishers who will take the time to read your stuff and give you a yay or nay. They'll even give you a critique and tell you why they either like or dislike the material if you ask them. Although, you better be ready for some brutal honesty if they didn't.

I mean, let's face it. Here on dA, my numbers of pageviews are less than striking. I haven't attracted many new watchers at the rate that some colleagues are and I'm awful at selling myself. Maybe most of us feel that we are. But we continuously ask ourselves: Are we good enough? Do we have what it takes?

Today, I had an experience which left me asking those questions again. I put in a bid for a job which I thought was reasonable. I always thought that my work could support bids like this since I've been at it for a long time. I've refined my eye to choose shots which I would have thought were great for publishing. Which would encourage people to hire me, even a couple of times a month just so I can make a living.

Today, I discovered that wasn't so. I didn't get the bid and I sank into sorrow wondering what I did wrong. I ask myself the same question every time I put up a new shot on Deviantart and my numbers rarely go over 30 pageviews. And I look at other people's works, younger photographers with pictures similar to those I used to take in high school and within a day, they have 50 faves stacked up. And all they're doing is pointing a digital camera and shooting. They don't even know the first thing about photography. They're some of the people emailing me to ask what the relationship is between speed and aperture and depth of field.

Today, I found myself wondering why I put myself through all this rejection and the ignorance of what I put my heart into. Is it worth it?

I don't have the answer to that today. I have to think about it. I have to think where I went wrong.