The Politics of Fashion Photography Part 22 – Do Not Give Up… Your Day Job

Or a synopsis of the WestEast Magazine Benjamin Kanarek Blog Fashion Beauty Photography Contest

I have had the opportunity and privilege of being allowed to participate on several photography and fashion photography forums over the last few years. The frequency of questions pertaining to surviving in the fashion industry, getting in to the fashion industry, testing models to get in to the fashion industry, meeting with magazine editors in the fashion industry, submitting editorial fashion and beauty spreads to magazines in the fashion industry, etc… Run literally in the thousands.

I have also had the opportunity to host a couple of (what I consider) credible contests to aid those wishing to get in to the fashion industry, by giving them some semblance of a fashion vocabulary.

What have I garnered from all of this? Well several things of course. There have been those that have expressed blind child like enthusiasm and would be wiling to give their kidney away for a chance at the Big Break to others that spew forth  a skepticism and vile disdain for anything that seems to be anything other than commercially motivated as being totally ingenuous.

But one of the characteristics I have noted with utter disappointment, is how little people really wish to do to attain those goals that they say are what they want the most. Give me Fame for Fames Sake is the calling of the moment. Well what do I say to that?  “F… You!!!”. Not on my dime!

Why this rant?  I have been given the opportunity to share something with many that I wish I had received when I was getting started and that is counseling with a prize. I was never given the opportunity to be counseled by a professional about the business and being given the opportunity to be seen in one of the more credible Fashion Magazines in the world.  What I did receive in about 90 percent of the feedback was that vile “F You” attitude of “You are Full of Shit  and I am not buying this contest for one moment…” well again, to those of you in that category, don’t ever waste my PRECIOUS time with vampire like energy tapping stuff that I became so accustomed to over the last few months of this contest. To put it mildly, apathy was in great abundance. However the capacity to critique the contest was incredibly active by many and could have been a contest in it’s own right. Now if only that energy could have been put in to a more positive scenario, this diatribe of mine would not exist or at least not be necessary.

To those of you that did participate, good for you and I hope the process was fun as well as illuminating and perhaps creatively stimulating.

So to those 90 percent plus photographers out their who aspire to be fashion photographers, but do not have the courage to really jump head first in to the proverbial pond, Don’t give up… Your day job. To those 10 percent of you that did, don’t give up, you are worth every drop of precious energy you put in to the process.

So, look out shortly for the winners of the WestEast Magazine Benjamin Kanarek Blog Fashion Beauty Photography contest! This should prove to be very  interesting indeed.