Ten years. That's how long I've had my photography business. It's been filled with celebrities, clients of all discerning types, adventures, joy, tears, and hardship. And this month, I am shutting it all down, with an eye to starting over. At some point in our lives, we find ourselves asking for a do over, but I think we overlook the fact that quite often that mystical do over is in the palms of our hands.
I am giving myself the gift of that do over.
Photography is a hungry beast, and when you turn it into a business, it consumes you. As a hobby, you love it, and want to feed it and nurture it. In return, you get this satisfaction from your creative endeavors, even if really the result is shiite. But it feels good, and that's what matters. When you get brave enough to make it real, to turn it into a business and tell the world you have a viable talent that is worth money, it becomes something else quite different. Now it's marketing, administrative overhead, and most of all, you have to make the client happy, day after day. It's the client that matters, not you. And the IRS. Oh damn the IRS.
I have some really amazing friends and mentors in the photography business, some of whom have been in the business for decades, literally. Some of them no longer view the camera as an object of love. It's a job. One such friend retired from the business, and doesn't miss it one single bit.
I didn't want that to be me.
Today I filed my final sales tax claim. It was a bittersweet moment that left me a bit numb inside. The only administrative task left will be the 2022 income tax return, and then that rabid beast will cease to live.
What is next? I am already planning shoots that I want to do. There are many adventures ahead of me, and I plan to photograph the places, people, and things I want to shoot, free of the entanglements of a business. It's creativity at it's most basic form. I also have film cameras I plan to use more of. Literally in the day of AI taking over, I'm going back in time. In spite of AI, I believe we creators still have a place in the world, and we can capture and express things AI cannot, because we are human, we have emotion and perception that AI does not. The more we progress, the more we regress.
This is my do over.