The Next Level
I’ve read a lot of blogs and photography articles recently where photographers say “I’m taking my photography to the next level”. Richard also uses this phrase a fair bit.
What exactly IS this mysterious “Next Level”?
Is this some mysterious trendy photographer jargon that I’m missing? It sure sounds cool and arty.
Are these articles referring to a complete reorientation of a photographer’s style and change of direction ?
Does “the next level” mean when a photographer wants to have a good clear-out of old images, and only post his best work in future ?
Is it an excuse to upgrade your equipment and buy a new whizzy camera perhaps ?
(Rich has been dreaming about the Hasselblad again. You can tell, can’t you?!)
Or is it just bullshit-speak because the photographer is bored and dissatisfied with his quality of photography generally?
I am wondering how on earth you assess your current level anyway.
Is it defined by the equipment you use or the quality of images you produce ? And how do you judge “quality”?
Assessing your current level is by its very nature an entirely subjective experience. Are you really the best judge of your own work? For example, I can find your image really breathtakingly beautiful, and you can find it completely substandard and lacking in lighting, skill and direction. Doesn’t mean the image is any less beautiful, or that you aren’t amazingly talented, but it does tell me you should stop thinking that the general public can’t judge your work properly, and that you should take the time to pause and smell the roses, and just try to appreciate the perfectionism that others see in your “less than perfect” picture.
I guess what I’m wondering is if any photographer, or artist come to think of it, will ever be happy with their work? Sure they might be occasionally happy with a particular photograph, but what are the chances that this state of contentment with their quality of work will be sustained for a week, let alone for a month ?
There are literally hundreds of articles on the internet about taking your photography to the next level. I actually took the time to read about twenty of them before I decided they were mostly technical rubbish with a catchy title. Many articles warn against “jumping too quickly” to the next level, resulting in wasted time and money. Many advise going back to basics, rather than try and shoot something which you won’t be good at. To me this is total bullshit. Yes, the basics are always important. But how the hell are you ever going to evolve your photographic skill if you are overly self-critical and you never TRY? There’s a big difference about talking about the “next level” and actually enacting change.
In the business world, taking your business to the next level is marketing-speak for “How do you get big?” I’ve read plenty of articles about this too. This is really about making someone love your product so much that they can’t resist having it. Apparently you have to stop seeing yourself as a victim and blaming others for your lack of success. You have to assume 100% responsibility for your product. You must have an audacious vision, develop strategic alliances, and be prepared to ditch activities and processes that don’t support your growth.
This is just highly contagious marketing-speak for being obsessive about your work. If you work incredibly hard at something, and you love what you do, then you are almost certainly going to get better at it, and the quality of the results you produce will improve. If you are passionate about your work, it shows, and other’s will love your product (photograph) too.
Serious photographers are perfectionists by nature. I’ve never met one who isn’t living and breathing their work, to the extent that it sucks them in and absorbs every fibre of their creative being. And if your work is nekkid chix, well, small wonder that your spouses get fed up with it sometimes. Just how long can a photographer spend looking at a pair of breasts ? The spouse can never be 100% sure that the photographer really is obsessed with perfecting that image of those humungous boobies, or totally obsessed with the humungous boobies themselves. I guess it’s a matter of trust (*Sigh *)
But I digress.
After all this reading, I’m really none the wiser. I have concluded that this much talked-about “next level” is merely a photographic utopia that will never exist except in the mind. There will always be a “next level” to strive for. And when you finally do run out of levels to reach, and you are completely happy that you have reached the absolute pinnacle of photographic perfection, well, I guess your task in this world is complete, my friend, and your purpose in life is done.
Lynx, talking of perfection.
What exactly IS this mysterious “Next Level”?
Is this some mysterious trendy photographer jargon that I’m missing? It sure sounds cool and arty.
Are these articles referring to a complete reorientation of a photographer’s style and change of direction ?
Does “the next level” mean when a photographer wants to have a good clear-out of old images, and only post his best work in future ?
Is it an excuse to upgrade your equipment and buy a new whizzy camera perhaps ?
(Rich has been dreaming about the Hasselblad again. You can tell, can’t you?!)
Or is it just bullshit-speak because the photographer is bored and dissatisfied with his quality of photography generally?
I am wondering how on earth you assess your current level anyway.
Is it defined by the equipment you use or the quality of images you produce ? And how do you judge “quality”?
Assessing your current level is by its very nature an entirely subjective experience. Are you really the best judge of your own work? For example, I can find your image really breathtakingly beautiful, and you can find it completely substandard and lacking in lighting, skill and direction. Doesn’t mean the image is any less beautiful, or that you aren’t amazingly talented, but it does tell me you should stop thinking that the general public can’t judge your work properly, and that you should take the time to pause and smell the roses, and just try to appreciate the perfectionism that others see in your “less than perfect” picture.
I guess what I’m wondering is if any photographer, or artist come to think of it, will ever be happy with their work? Sure they might be occasionally happy with a particular photograph, but what are the chances that this state of contentment with their quality of work will be sustained for a week, let alone for a month ?
There are literally hundreds of articles on the internet about taking your photography to the next level. I actually took the time to read about twenty of them before I decided they were mostly technical rubbish with a catchy title. Many articles warn against “jumping too quickly” to the next level, resulting in wasted time and money. Many advise going back to basics, rather than try and shoot something which you won’t be good at. To me this is total bullshit. Yes, the basics are always important. But how the hell are you ever going to evolve your photographic skill if you are overly self-critical and you never TRY? There’s a big difference about talking about the “next level” and actually enacting change.
In the business world, taking your business to the next level is marketing-speak for “How do you get big?” I’ve read plenty of articles about this too. This is really about making someone love your product so much that they can’t resist having it. Apparently you have to stop seeing yourself as a victim and blaming others for your lack of success. You have to assume 100% responsibility for your product. You must have an audacious vision, develop strategic alliances, and be prepared to ditch activities and processes that don’t support your growth.
This is just highly contagious marketing-speak for being obsessive about your work. If you work incredibly hard at something, and you love what you do, then you are almost certainly going to get better at it, and the quality of the results you produce will improve. If you are passionate about your work, it shows, and other’s will love your product (photograph) too.
Serious photographers are perfectionists by nature. I’ve never met one who isn’t living and breathing their work, to the extent that it sucks them in and absorbs every fibre of their creative being. And if your work is nekkid chix, well, small wonder that your spouses get fed up with it sometimes. Just how long can a photographer spend looking at a pair of breasts ? The spouse can never be 100% sure that the photographer really is obsessed with perfecting that image of those humungous boobies, or totally obsessed with the humungous boobies themselves. I guess it’s a matter of trust (*Sigh *)
But I digress.
After all this reading, I’m really none the wiser. I have concluded that this much talked-about “next level” is merely a photographic utopia that will never exist except in the mind. There will always be a “next level” to strive for. And when you finally do run out of levels to reach, and you are completely happy that you have reached the absolute pinnacle of photographic perfection, well, I guess your task in this world is complete, my friend, and your purpose in life is done.
Lynx, talking of perfection.
posted by Lin at 3:55 PM
4 Comments:
I don't think I've ever used the phrase "next level" to describe where my work was going. I have said that my work has "turned the corner" a few times in the last few years. Looking back on it, it's always meant that my work has somehow gotten more explicit as well as more personal.
Hiya lin,
Finally I have hit all the deadlines and so have time to respond!
There's an artistic similarity here between what you talk about and the journey that musicians make. I used to play the piano quite well, but was always deeply frustrated by it. I hit a ceiling that I couldn't get beyond. I found that my hands just wouldn't bring out the music that I felt was there in my heart; my fingers kept falling into the same patterns of sounds, which was boring. I felt it was my hands that were the problem - I just wasn't using them skillfully enough.
Wrong.
In the end I realised learning the piano is like learning a new language. First you learn the mechanics, how to get your mouth to make the new sounds; then you learn the structure, grammar and vocab. But none of this will ever make you a poet in either the new language or the old. At the very best, language is a tool that can fluidly allow or stubbornly get in the way of the expression of thought and heart. Whether it's used technically or from the gut, its not the language itself that is the beauty of the poem, it's just the carrier of it.
In the end the, cure for me was to abandon technique altogether. I discovered singing with other people. Because using the voice is something we just DO without thinking about it means I can put down my head, and make music from the heart. Ok, lots of practice and learning a little technique have happened along the way, but that's not the point. Fundamentally, now, the tool is no longer getting in the way of the creative act. At last there's a clear channel between what I feel musically and what I make. The tool is no longer a problem and I can get on with finding out how to bring out the heart in music more and more. I'm still only an OK musician, but I'm no longer being driven nuts by the bloody tools of the trade.
I think the same process is utterly relevant to photography or ANY other artistic venture. A new camera, new gadget, or praise about the exactness of a technique will *never* make anyone a great photographer. The very most it can do is to remove a small barrier that has clouded your sight over the biggest goal - and that's finding how to make visual poetry without thinking about the tools of the trade. And *that* journey has got sod all to do with the mechanics of photography.
Lady Tottington & I have followed the links from your blog and had a good look around some of the other sites too. *Some* are really good, some are clearly stuck in a rut of technique. For those people, I'd suggest spending 6 months attending drawing and design/composition classes instead. While it would no doubt be uncomfortable, it would offer the opportunity to change how they use their eyes and bring a fresh perspective back to how they use a camera. Frankly, attending local adult education art classes will do far more for any frustrated photographer than a Rolls Royce of a camera will ever do. After all, David Bailey took some of his most famous photos on an Olympus Trip.
Oh, and Lin, speaking as a bloke, I find it almost impossible to believe that it's not all about the boobs. Otherwise, these same photographers would have an equal proportion of non-gorgeous, non-perky boobs in their portfolios. If the demand was there, the models would be too.
Most of the famous artists of previous centuries have been obsessed with bodies and sex. They were censured by the state for portraying eroticism and hid it behind scenes of classical antiquity, while engaging in rampant affairs and leaving a trail of broken women's (and men's) hearts behind them. Ahh, the artistic temperament.
Now what was it you said in a previous post about most photographers in your scene being single?
Grommit :-)
I also haven't used the term, but I am changing my process to be more deliberate. Money and equipment doesnt' define the change, but in my case the move to 4x5 does cripple me and prevent me from continuing on the current track.
The current track has been excellent. But it's not a challenge anymore. I mean, how many women can one photograph masturbating before you see the same old stuff? I don't know where I'll be going next, only that it will be slower, more deliberate and will require me to visualize, rather than simply "catch" the photograph.
An artist that gets complacent isn't working hard enough. I'm not working hard enough.
What next? No idea yet. But it won't be the same as the last phase.
-Don
I'm completely with Don on the complacency point. To me, it's not so much about "going to the next level", because that implies that what you just did wasn't "as good", but more so continuing to search around for new and different things to work on. Once you stop moving and once you get stuck shooting things that are redundant, that's when you know it's time to move.
As always - great post!
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