10/18/2024
Okay. It is finished. Six weeks ago I blew up my website, threw away 254 five star reviews on Google, and called it quits on my photography business. (The phone not ringing is fabulous!!) I canceled my Chamber of Commerce and Professional Photographers Association memberships, canceled my business software and my Arkansas Tax accounts. I am done. And I've never been happier! I have been a professional photographer from my first magazine spread in 1973, to published works in several magazines including Hot Rod, Prog Rock, Sound on Sound, NEA Today and many more. But why? I am not special anymore. In the 70s, I would walk around with a three foot lens on my camera and that would get me backstage because I had pro gear, I must be a PRO, right?
Today, all one has to do to be a photographer is buy a $600 camera (Rebel Ti) and have a dedicated FaceBook page, and you're in business! With AI taking over photography, this is not the skilled craft that I grew up with (if today's "photographers" had to develop their own film they'd quit in a minute!) and because of this, I am retiring from an industry I don't even recognize anymore. It's going to be alright. I'm fine, really. P.S., please don't call.
(Picture below is me in the early days sharing my Nikkormat FTN with the adorable Rhonda Anderson, cheerleader for Memorial High School, 1974.)
