Just A Man With A Camera

I've talked plenty of times about my toy photography. At one time it was a great outlet for me because it fed my need to photograph something, but also combined nicely with the fun of my toy collection. It gave this grown man a good excuse to play with his toys and show them off for the world to see.  I had an Instagram page (DazmaToyarts) that I posted on regularly, and it felt fullfilling to have an outlet to show off my work and get some occasional feedback from others. For a few years I posted consistently, grew the page to somewhere between 400-500 followers, and had a few big boosts when a company would ask to share an image, and on the rare occasion a celebrity who's action figure I had been using. The biggest one for me was when Elivra shared one image on valentines day that made the notifications on my phone blow up for about a week. Although as a wrestling fan, and a fan of the Hart family, it was always a big deal for me when Natalya Neidhart or Davey Boy Smith Jr. would share or interact with a post.

  

So why does it seem like I'm talking in past tense?  Clearly if you read my last post, some of the prints I made came out of my toy photography.  Well, I really cut back on shooting with toys because I kind of got burned out on it. I also got burned out on expanding my collection and collecting culture. The difficult thing about having a collection that you post about on social media is that you are always trying to expand that collection because there is always something new coming out that's giving you FOMO. The problem is, there's only so much room on the shelf and money in your wallet. It got to a point where I realized it stopped making me happy. I was filling my house with "cool stuff", but at the same time it made me feel like I was drowning in stuff. My collection isn't (and never has been) anything like what you may see on some collectors Youtube page, but it had gotten too big for me to be comfortable with, and if I didn't actively slow down it was going to go way farther than I want it to. There was a time in my life were I tried to be somewhat of a minimalist, but over the years I have slowly gotten away from it. It only got worse once I bought a house. I often look around and George Carlin's bit about "stuff" runs through my head. "Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore"

So I started paring down on the collection, and a byproduct of that was less photography because I was generally less excited about the collection. I would still pick up some figures (usually after removing and selling off something else.  I try to go by a one in/one out rule), and take a photo or two. Nothing like I had done previously.  Eventually I also got to a point where I wanted to minimize the amount of social media I was connected to, and so I nuked the Instagram account. It was easy to justify to myself because by that time it was fairly inactive, and I would rather not have posts involving my art benefit Meta in any way. So it was an easy cut to make. (yes I realize that Google hosts this page on Blogger and there's a debate there involving various levels of evil in big tech, but let's figure that out later)  

But now without and outlet for posting or a place to post and share and get excited about likes, then what's point right? Well, that's where this new print selling endevour comes in. I'm going to try take that instant gratification of digital likes and notifications popping up on my phone and evolve it into long term gratification and real human likes. I know this is hardly any kind of new concept for someone who sells there art regularly, but it's somewhat of new feeling for me. It may take awhile for someone to see a piece of my work but I'm hoping that the endorphin boost our brains get from in Instagram alert is eclipsed by some real human connection and a sale or two (money from my art going to me instead of Meta ad revenue). But I would be lying if it didn't make it difficult to not get going on producing more photos again. It's tough doing something for yourself that won't pay off for the long term. At least this time, I feel like when it does pay off it will feel much more fulfilling.

So this week I dusted off some figures and tried to do some new shots to potentially expand my print inventory.  It was fun. For the most part I went back to basics, but I also tried some new techniques. I bought a tablet a few years ago that makes for a fantastic backdrop. I am not sure why I didn't think of using it sooner. Rather than having a stock of different solid colours or printed images or elaborate dioramas, I can just throw up a picture or select a colour in Windows Paint. It's not much, but it felt good to get going again and I felt like I accomplished something, and for now that's good enough.

 

This week I recieved my first order of prints that I'm going to attempt to sell, and oddly it was a strange experience seeing my work in print. Not because I've never printed anything before. This isn't even the first time I have attempted to sell prints of my work. However it has been a very long time. I used to work in a photolab, and horribily abused my ability to make prints for myself with zero supervision. I had a closet full of copies of my work, to the point that I had to get rid of it all because I was just moving pictures over and over and over again that I was doing nothing with.

Why wasn't I printing anymore? Partly because of money. Let's face it, printing isn't cheap. I think another factor was because while eventhough I was improving as a photographer over the years, I was losing confidence in my photos because I was focusing on how much better I thought other photographers were rather than focusing on myself. Undeniably the rise of the prevalence of social media played a roll in this. There was also the fact that I worked in a camera shop and was looking at so many other photographers work and ran into what we would now recognize as toxic attitudes. So often you would find people who would look at your work and tell you all the things that are wrong with it, rather than what you did well. I'm all for some constructive criticism, but when I think back on that time there were so many people who were almost excited to tell you what you did wrong rather than what you did right. It will make you gun shy about showing off any of your work to people, and make that little asshole voice of "what's the point" scream loudly in your head.

So I got these first prints made, and honestly it felt really good to see my work in print again. Even if it was just my wife and I in our kitchen sorting through them, it felt good to hold some of these in my hands and look at them not on a screen. It's that physical, tactile connection to a piece of work that I think I really missed. Over the last year of making a strong effort to recaputre and rebuild my passion of photography, I repeatedly read and hear others talk about the importance of getting your work printed.  They harp on it, and with this first order of prints I get it. I wish I hadn't forgotten it in the first place. 

It's been awhile since I last checked in. The last post was about the new year and new goals and they are still the same goals now as they were then.  The eBay store really quieted down, but for a period it did help to pay off my previously mentioned new camera and a new lens. With that I now have what I guess would be considered a pro setup: OM-1, 12-40 2.8 Pro, and 40-150 2.8 Pro.  The lenses have Pro in the name so that means I'm ready to go pro right?....whatever that means.

So where have I been, and what have I been doing other than neglecting this blog?  I did some hibernating over a cold winter. Then I did some traveling to Florida to breifly escape said cold winter and visit family. Along the way I've have been doing some shooting, as well as planning and studying to achieve the other photography related goals for the year I mentioned in that post form the long ago time of January. 

Honestly though it's been a struggle, and a lot of feeling like I'm stuck spinning my wheels. There have been some difficuly mental health challenges this year which has been working against me. A lot of feeling like I can't achieve my goals, accompanied by alot of feeling like my work isn't good enough and that I don't know what I'm doing. But I have been dworking hard to break throught that(as difficult as it can be). At one point when I was feeling pretty low, my wife asked me what are somethings that have been making me happy lately, and it came out that whenever I'm shooting and focusing on something photography adjacent, I'm happiest. Which has lead to me trying to do regular photo walks, mostly just taking pictures of birds. It's been nice, and something that I once found kind of boring back in my photo store days I finally get understand the simple joy of.

While in the midst of one of these periods of being down on myself, a quote from a recent podcast interview with John Cena suddenly popped into my head.  Try as I might, I can't find the quote without listening to the full interview again, but it was something along the lines of "planning is the enemy of doing".  It wasn't something he came up with, but he said it. While I may not remember it exactly, the message stuck with me and finally broke though to me.  In that moment, I pulled out my phone and contacted a local business owner who is putting together and holiday art market that I had been planning to get a table at to try my hand at selling my prints. He got back to me right away with an enthusiastic "Fuck yeah!"

I took a first step to achiving one of my goals this year and honestly it's energized me. I've put in an order for prints, started inventorying what I've sent in, and tracking my costs.  What I'm going to sell is a mix of my toy photography, and what we'll just classify as "fine art" prints. Amongst that I plan on advertising services for portraiture and headshots. That last one gives me anxiety but I'm going for it. I told my wife that I don't want to get to the end of the year and look back and beat myself up for not giving it a shot. I spent years working in a camera store watching people who had no idea what they were doing put themselves out there and make a career or at the least a side gig. There's no reason I can't do it too.