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| Suitable for framing – but so what? |
The other day, I was showing to a waitress at my favorite Mexican restaurant some photos I had taken. She was impressed by what she saw, and asked me if I am or had ever been a professional photographer. I just said, "No." In actuality, I'd stopped trying to do it for hire when I realized that no one wanted to pay. I hung it up entirely almost 20 years ago when a woman, referred to me by a mutual acquaintance, contacted me about doing last-minute photography for her wedding on the upcoming weekend. Being the pre-digital era, I cited her a flat rate for my time, doubling my expenses, and letting her keep the film negatives. Although I'd expected her to appreciate the respectfully straightforward and equitable package, which came to only about $200, I heard her hemming and hawing about it on the other end of the line, until she blurted-out, "Um, would you know of a student who'd do it for free?" Such is a hazard of living in a city with a large university population. I wondered what if I were to call an escort service and inquire about rates, and then pause and ask, "Would you know of a college girl who'd do it for free?" (Now, in the post-OnlyFans/Tinder era, however, college girls are savvy enough to charge for it.) My response to the mind-numbingly brutal tactlessness of her response was to simply hang-up the phone. When my Nikon camera broke a couple years later, I didn't care, and kinda felt relieved.
It was about six years ago that I started taking photos again (and videos, as well). It was at a time of my life when I'd needed to get out of the house more, going out to capture what I saw around me. It's the main reason why my musical "output" became less frequent and more a matter of quality-over-quantity. Although some of the images I've shot impress some people, I've never considered my picture-taking as art, but as documentary. If it comes out lookin' cool, it's because that's how it had looked, not because of how I'd seen it. I had, in fact, studied photography, informally but assiduously, for quite some time, because I wanted to know how it worked, in order to take advantage of the technology of it to make cool-lookin' things not look like doo-doo. (There is a bona fide, respected art photographer with my name in New Mexico, with whom I had a brief, amicable exchange, in which I apologized for sullying his name with my dirty, stinky songs. He replied that he had known of me, told me it was all good, and invited me to look him up if ever out his way.) It was for the love of it that I'd learned how to do it competently, and it is with love for it that I go about it.
During the time when I'd gotten sort of sucked into being "a photographer," I had occasions to learn how creepy I really was – and was not. These usually came in female form. I knew a successful wedding photographer who'd sneak upskirt shots of unsuspecting suburbanite brides by having them pose or move in certain ways. He had in the bottom drawer of his desk a box of 4x6 prints of these shots, which he lightly flung, one-at-a-time, across his desk for me to peruse. I wasn't aroused by them, but amused by his audacious obsession and appalled by how, even if this weren't illegal, it rendered him vulnerable to violent git-back by any of the grooms. Even his assistants – all female – knew of this, but they thought it was "cute," when it was creepy.
Then there were the girls who got me to take photos of them. Of course, my compulsive "male gaze" (it's how we're wired, ladies; we're emburdened with mastering the conduction of its current) compelled me to a certain point, but then I'd get a sense of being about to transgress a girl's dignity, and I'd empathetically restrain myself. This was especially challenging when photographing the ethereally-beautiful 15-year-old. When I'd first seen her, I'd assumed her to be 18 or 19, and was overwhelmingly smitten, but learning her actual age caused me to be perhaps more reticent that I'd had to be. The 23-year-old French woman with the gigantic seins changed clothes a few feet away from me, and I averted my eyes to afford her some privacy, even though she'd had no qualms about being naked and probably enjoyed my seeing her that way. Despite that I've had my nefarious moments, though, I've regretted and learned from them. I'm a nice perv, I suppose.
Finally, a male friend of mine approached me about taking photos of him and his girlfriend engaged in savage copulation. I figured that I'd do this once, just to say that I had. When it came to the point of my telling him that I had to legally cover my ass by taking a photo of her govt.-issued ID card in order to verify that she were at least 18 years of age, they both freaked-out on me and refused. They told me that it was because she guarded her privacy. I told them that I guarded my liberty: photographers get arrested by the Feds for taking nude and explicit photos of underage subjects; one has to keep a subject's ID on file. Then I looked at his girlfriend more closely. Although she had a kid, she herself looked like one. Despite alternate cajoling and guilt-tripping from my friend, I didn't give-in – and was later vindicated when I learned of his penchant for females of the age of 17 (which is the age of sexual consent for females in Texas): 16 was too young; 18 was too old. A case in which I was rewarded for my resolve to remain steadfast to principles – or just to have a healthy fear of prison.
The waitress at my favorite Mexican restaurant told me that she'd pay me to take photos of her with her kids at the park and such, since she didn't have but smartphone shots of them. I was reticent to accept the offer, and I've decided since then that, were I to do so, I'd do it for free. For one thing, I wouldn't want her to feel disappointed if the shots didn't come out as she'd envisioned. For another, I don't like feeling saddled by having to perform. I want to run free with my shit. Same as with my music: although I put it on the Internet for people pay to download (or not) or otherwise enjoy (or not) per-song, and I present it cogently and deliberately, I do so because I can on my own terms. When the Terms of Service of this or that online platform start to suck, I'm outa there. It's why my music is not on this or that platform on which I "should" have it. There is nothing about how I go about making the music itself that is in consideration of The Marketplace nor mitigated by any TOS. I'm a free-range artist. A leash is a noose.