A portrait photography failure
Art, creative things, whatever you want to call what I record on this website, it is low risk for me. Aside from the brief art and design or music class in college, very rarely has anything creative I have done been so obviously labeled a success or failure. While a lot of this website focuses on subjective attempts - a recording of growth, lessons learned, etc., I wanted to denote one of the objective failures I’ve had within the past few years. Frankly, this rejection wasn’t largely impactful on me or my inner desire to create, and it also wasn’t that big of a deal. Regardless, this rejection still occurred, and now it’s here for you to hear about.
In 2018, a friend reached out to me about shooting individual outdoor portrait shots of her graduating class. For me to get the job, I needed to submit a portfolio of portrait photography and a quote - simple, right? Sure, except I didn’t have a portfolio, and I had no idea how to price taking individual pictures of a whole graduating class. But I was determined to get both of those deliverables to her.
I posted a message in the Catholic group I was involved in at school, offering to take portraits of anyone for free. I ended up taking most of my photos right after Mass, snapping shots of whoever I could pull aside quickly and convince to pose. I narrowed it down to the few I felt confident with, lightly edited them, compiled them in a PDF and submitted them alongside a quote for I don’t even know how much at this point. Below are screenshots of each page of the PDF:
In the end, as you can guess, I never got the job. Maybe I quoted too high a price, maybe they didn’t like the portfolio. Reviewing these now I could tell you a million things I did wrong in these shots - cutting off the frame at people’s limbs, not giving enough direction for posing, framing a shot wrong, editing someone’s skin the wrong color, so I can understand why I never got the gig. Honestly, I don’t have some big lesson learned. All I know is that there were people willing to put up with my random request for pictures, and that I tried my best, and I don’t regret it. I missed this one opportunity to feel validated and earn some extra money, but at the end of the day it never held me back, and why would it? I take pictures, write songs, sew, throw clay, mess with woodworking, etc., not for the validation of others or even as a side gig, but because I find joy in these things. Honestly sometimes I do them to remind myself that amidst corporate meetings and coding and databases that I can contribute more to the world outside of my labeled profession. And that’s okay.
Alright, I’m rambling. Talk to you next time.