What to do with your images?

I have heard others say

     "I just don't have the time to carry a camera, and a phone."

I have heard others say

     "I don't have the time to stop and take a picture."

I have heard others say

     "Why bother, I mean who is going to see it anyway?"

The first two are easy, you just do it, but the third has been a stumbling block for many of us.

It's so easy today to take a great image, as the camera has taken 75% of the details out of our hand, automatically.  Finishing touches, as in contrast, saturation, burning, dodging, and cropping are made easy by photoshop or other computer aids to the final print, taking up another 15% of your effort.

I like to think the last 10% is the hardest, as this is taking the image to where it belongs.  

Once I am back to base I must make the decisions as to how I will finish the image.  

Then comes the presentation.  Cutting and cropping, mounting with my dry mount press, making a mat to border the image, and constructing a frame for wall display.  The next part was keeping the glass perfectly clean and removing any dust between the photo, the mat and the inner glass.  I add the backing paper, then the wire to hang the image up.

Now comes the hardest part of all, where to take the image to be seen, and then sold.  When I was free lancing as a photo journalist, this was not a problem.  I would submit a number of images, the photo editor would pick usually the worst and use this one image for their purpose.  Art, and telling a story came second to the editor's idea of what fit the magazine's ideals, and this usually meant their bottom line, in advertisers or subscribers.  This is why I took up writing the story as well as taking the photos, so they would fit together.  Damn if they didn't like my stories more than the pictures, and again chose what they wanted.

Now that I am back to art and displays, I have had to become a hustler to find where these images best belong.  Galleries, hotels, restaurants, town halls are a good choice, but this requires patience and a trip to the location.  Juried shows are nice, but most come with an entrance fee, room for usually only one image, and the attitudes of the judges, each with their own agenda.

So for me, taking the image, then making it the best I can, is so much easier than placing it to the public.

And this is why I use deviantArt, as a preliminary to assist me in choosing what to show and sometimes where to show.

I thank all who return feedback to me as this helps my selection process.

eugene spiegel