maybe you can help me out. i was wondering...when are you really something professional? in strictly the "career" sense. when are you a writer? when you are published in something other than your own journal? when you are paid to write? are you an artist when someone purchases your work to grace a wall? are you a photographer when your photographs appear in printed matter? or when a gallery beckons for an opening? when are you anything? when the press embraces you?
i was thinking about this earlier this morning because a couple of days ago, book publisher, rizzoli, asked me to sign a release form for permission to print two photographs i took at a holiday dinner. my friend who hosted the dinner liked the pictures enough to want to include them in his next art book. i shot the photographs on a semi-automatic setting of a digital camera. i thought about the composition but nothing else. i pressed, et voila, soon to go down in recorded history.
so i thought, today, i am a professional photographer. i have been a writer, editor, music a&r coordinator, and a game developer if all it takes is credit. but the reality is, i'm none of these. it would be more authentic to say, my work and efforts appears in music, video game, film, magazine, and book publishing. that would be more truthful.
if i'm asked for a career description, i respond, "i hustle culture." i don't think it could be more accurate than that. deep thoughts brought on by delirium. naturally.
