A third option

Kate Hutchinson had a post last week that’s been on my mind. In it, she says:

Basically, I think that there are two ways that newbie photographers seem to progress, at least for those of us that start out with no money that is, no trust-fund kids included in this list please. So either you start out shooting whatever kind of photography work that you can get paid for and do your own stuff on the side, or you work a steady job manning phones or something and then do your photo stuff on the side. I took the former route and it suited me well. It allowed me to use my photo skills and taught me a lot of business skills too. But it seems as though my type can get a bad rap. Those that worked a full-time job till they hit the big work that they were aiming for seem untouchable because they never slummed around doing stuff like weddings. Well, while we were getting paid to shoot, they were manning phones.

I totally get the point Kate’s making, and I admire and respect the work she’s done—wedding and otherwise. But in reading her rant, as she called it (Kate, if you want a rant, I think I can give you a run for your money in that department), I couldn’t see myself in either camp. I’m not doing whatever kind of photography work that I can get paid for, and I’m not working a steady job manning phones (or waiting tables or tending bar or whatever). I’m working a career-type job, the kind that some people really want, that pays pretty well, and that requires a lot more of me than a pleasant phone voice.

I’ve often referred to my day job on this blog with a sense of disdain. But the fact of the matter is, I’ve got it pretty good, and I realized that tonight. It’s a Saturday night, and I’ve spent the past five hours or so editing a 13-page chapter that was probably the worst chapter I’ve read from an author in 11 years of editing. Seriously, it was that bad. It should not take five hours to edit 13 pages. I should be able to edit 13 pages in an hour, two hours if it’s really rough. So that gives you a sense of how bad it was. I didn’t have to work on this chapter tonight. I needed to get it done by Tuesday, but I had all weekend to finish it. And the reason I stuck with it was because it felt good. I was turning this piece-of-shit chapter into something really solid, something useful to readers, something that would make this author look a thousand times better than she really is. I was showing her—through my queries and notes, through flat-out rewriting her text—how to be better with the next chapter. I was giving her the chance to learn and improve. And I was doing it with no sense of frustration or impatience (a rarity for me, I admit). Hell, I was even encouraging, looking for the few things she did right and making sure to point those out.

I have no idea whether this author is the sort who’ll respond well to this incredibly heavy edit and eight single-spaced pages of queries, or whether she’ll be defensive and overwhelmed. But for now, in these moments just after finishing the chapter, I can assume she’ll be the former, that she’ll appreciate the work I’ve done, that she’ll study my edits and use them going forward, that this book will be one of the best books on the market because of it. For now, my work matters. And that’s no small thing.

So, add to your list, Kate, a third option: doing a job completely unrelated to photography, but one that challenges you, one you take satisfaction in, and one you occasionally kick ass at. It beats answering phones.