Doing the Work

Several years ago I did a project for the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. The assignment was to make portraits of some of Maine's best-known literary artists. The project was a dream come true. I had been enjoying the literary efforts of many of these individuals, Elizabeth Strout, Nicholson Baker, and Richard Ford, among others, for years. At least two had won Pulitzers, as well as one MacArthur award, and one Guggenheim. The conceit of the project was simple: photograph the writers in their work space. I used a vintage 500 series Hasselblad and Tri-X 400, knowing that to be the look I was after. (Only ten exposures per subject.) The project took one year, totaling fifty portraits, and was exhibited upon completion. The plan to collect the images into a book fell through for want of a publisher.

I have been fascinated by the creative effort all my life. The study of great creative personalities has guided my own creative habits and efforts to a large degree. So naturally, given the opportunity to talk, albeit briefly, with these successful creative individuals was a treat. Most importantly I had a chance to ask, How do you do it? How do you build a life as a successful creative individual? I'm sure the answer will come as no surprise. The consistent response was, "hard work and perseverance."

As someone who has done a bit of writing over the years I know that the more you write the more you develop your idiosyncratic voice. Highly polished writers can be recognized simply by their style. Their writing voice is as recognizable as their audible voice.

Having a "voice," a recognizable style, has been a photographic goal of mine for many years. I have a photographer friend whose "photographic voice" is so recognizable that once while visiting a bookstore in New Mexico I noticed a book jacket cover and knew immediately that it was one of my friend's images--not because I'd seen the photo before, I hadn't, but because I recognized her style. I opened the cover and sure enough, it was her image. This is not easy to accomplish.

What I've come to understand is that serious photographers must commit, like the serious poet or the serious novelist, to the craft. We must put in the hard work. We must persist. This means picking up the camera as often as possible (most writers I know write everyday) and practicing the craft. That means also spending time with our images and looking for clues to a style, looking for patterns, and most of all looking deeply to understand what we like and what works, as well as what doesn't. The photographers I admire have settled into a pattern of image making that is consistent and thematically pure. That does not necessarily mean that we can't make landscape images, and portraits, and also street photographs. But for me it means that I need to be mindful of what I want to accomplish as a photographer, regardless of the genre. It means that I am not simply taking pictures but rather I am consciously developing my photographic voice, one shutter release at a time.

Thanks for reading. You can find me at Doug Bruns Photography.