On craft and life.

[csxcnj]

Selling makes you needy, selling makes you want to do marketing,selling makes you photograph things that will sell..Whores are whores.

From your profile, "Occupation:I make fancy pool cues"

I googled fancy pool cues and they are expensive, involve artfully done woods, engravings, marquetry, inlays, chatter work etc. depending on the design. A combination of craft and art that can cost several thousands of dollars.

Evan, guess what? You're a WHORE! Unless of course you're just giving them away, but you did list it as your occupation.

I find your definition of people who sell their photographs poorly reasoned, borderline elitist and insulting. But that's okay, it's a big wide world with lots of ways of looking at it.

Happy. New Year

[Tin Can]

+1

I wish that the ultimate expression of degradation in business was not the word whore. Sex trade workers work like everybody else, Trading what they have to offer, often under circumstances that make life very hard. It is unpleasant, demeaning and wrong to think theirs' is the most degraded form of business.
I think liars are worse.

[evan clarke]

I have made around $20 million of these pool cues and feel dirty every time I have to capitulate with the customer..

[evan clarke]

So, Bob are you a "photographic artist"? Needy for fulfillment? Can't decide about your own work? Need to please somebody else to feel good about yourself?

[Jim collum]

I have made around $20 million of these pool cues and feel dirty every time I have to capitulate with the customer..

... and I feel fantastic, a sense of accomplishment in having produced something that someone besides myself holds in value. I spoke, and someone listened, and understood.

and it provided a little more material for me to continue my conversations.

My work is a two way processes. Talking in the dark, with no one to listen, doesn't seem as fulfilling

[evan clarke]

Analog photography has lost it's way as a profession. It's a hobby. If you want to fool yourself about selling prints at a pathetic art show, go nuts. In reality, just make photographs for yourself..

[evan clarke]

... and I feel fantastic, a sense of accomplishment in having produced something that someone besides myself holds in value. I spoke, and someone listened, and understood.

and it provided a little more material for me to continue my conversations.

My work is a two way processes. Talking in the dark, with no one to listen, doesn't seem as fulfilling

We are all in the dark..especially if we need to judge ourselves by what somebody else thinks about our work.. Who do you want to please? Who do you want to do your thinking. The OP titled this " On craft and life". I'm old and have crafted all my life..Pleasing others doesn't please me..If your measure of yourself is based on somebody else's opinion, the whore word applies.

[Jim collum]

I have made around $20 million of these pool cues and feel dirty every time I have to capitulate with the customer..

i don't understand why you'd subject your self to this self imposed degradation. That's what's puzzling. If you hate that so much, (and you must despise yourself as well for not having the willpower to stop from selling), why not just create pool cues, stack them in a closet, and do something much less degrading?

[Jim collum]

We are all in the dark..

you may be.. i'm not. I know very few people who are. Most artists I know feel enlightened by the work they produce

[evan clarke]

you may be.. i'm not. I know very few people who are. Most artists I know feel enlightened by the work they produce

Enlightened by the work or the praise they receive? People will tell you your stuff is wonderful and then turn around and degrade you, yet you will photograph to please them. It's a fool's game..Let's label ourselves as "artists". How foppish. MY POINT IS THAT ON ART AND CRAFT, THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT YOU DO IT FOR YOUR SELF. IF OTHERS ENJOY IT, WONDERFUL.