Enthusiasm... it's great stuff!

Many of you, I'm sure, are enthusiastic - or had better be - about taking photographs and selling them. You load up on film, shoot practically everything in sight, then can't wait to get your pictures back, right?

After all, they're sharper, more colorful, and better composed than the prints most people are used to seeing. And you know that someone, somewhere, will pay you for the privilege of printing them on a greeting card, or maybe in a magazine or book. Right?

So you're pictures come back from the lab, you're assured of their greatness by the some of the inexperienced eyes you show them to, and you immediately package them up and send them out. Then, after what seems like a lifetime, they come back to you with an awful printed rejection slip, a curt note, or maybe even no comment at all - unwanted by the publisher whose very existence had given you such hope when you placed them into the mail. Right?

I don't say this because I have ESP, a crystal ball, or a spy planted outside your window. I'm saying it because as a beginning photographer, I remember shooting practically everything in sight, then packaging up 12 or 20 of my "prize" slides and mailing them off to a photo agency.

Was I ever excited! I knew the agency director would love every single one of those great photos. And I was sure he would sell them for great chunks of money to a market that was eagerly waiting to see my material.

I waited and hoped for good news for the next couple of weeks - sometimes a couple of months - only to have my wonderful photos come back with a note calling them "nice" followed by a phrase similar to "but we don't think we can sell them"!

But as a young photographer who was just learning the business, I knew that when most of my "great" pictures kept sailing right back to me, I had to either give the whole thing up or put more effort into finding out what I needed to do to make them more acceptable in the marketplace.

Since I was extremely enthusiastic about taking pictures, I decided to learn more about what I had to do to be more successful as a photographer. I bought and studied books on the subject, took a correspondence course from NYI, and when the Army drafted me at the height of the Viet Nam war, got into photo school and spent 8 hours a day for 13 solid weeks learning to be a still photo specialist in the Signal Corps.

That was a long time ago, and I learned a lot along the way. In fact, looking back on it all in the light of what I know now, I often wish I had the same enthusiasm for getting out and taking pictures that I had some 30 years ago, when I first got into photography.

Was my initial enthusiasm wasted because I lacked a broad-based knowledge of photography and marketing pictures? Maybe not. But if you're new to the field and enthusiastic about it, keep your enthusiasm for as long as you can... but LEARN! Because the more quickly you learn about taking pictures of professional quality and the in's and out's of getting that photography into the hands of the people who can use it, the more enthusiastic you will remain.

Sure, you might not retain the blind enthusiasm of the novice, but the more you practice your craft while developing your skills, the more satisfaction you will derive from being a photographer who is fully capable of having his work purchased and paid for by an appreciative editor, art director, or even someone in your hometown.

Larry Stepanowicz

* When having business cards made, you might want to consider leaving off your address or using a Post Office Box as your address... and keeping an answering machine on your telephone.