This is the final in a trilogy of posts inspired by Austin Kleon’s SXSW keynote presentation. I can’t help but thing that much of the shabby behavior that Austin references is borne out of a sense of desperation to turn a hobby into a business or to take a business that’s bumping along to the next level.
While there are lots of resources that I could point you to that discuss the business of art, I’ve recently been enjoying Pam Slim‘s new book ‘Body of Work‘. Check out the interview below with Jonathan Fields from the Good Life Project.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”
Teddy Roosevelt
Thinking about the video from last week, the SXSW keynote speech that Austin Kleon gave, and his thoughts about showing your work led me to Brene Brown, her book Daring Greatly and a couple of videos for you to check out below. The title of her book comes from the speech that Teddy Roosevelt gave above and deals largely with being vulnerable, something that you absolutely must deal with to be creative and then get your work out in the world. Check out the videos below for more from Brene Brown.
I’ve followed Austin Kleon‘s work for a while and have mentioned him on the blog previously around the time his book ‘Steal Like an Artist‘ came out. Since then Austin has continued to do great work, published another book (Show your Work) and has spoken at many conferences discussing his thoughts and approaches to living a creative life.
The video above is the keynote that he gave at this years SXSW conference and is well worth a watch, particularly for those people who are at the early stages of building a body of work and finding an audience. Do you recognize yourself in his descriptions? I hope not!
I can’t say that I’d ever come across Alan Shapiro before watching his google talk ‘A Plea to Photographers: Use Your Words’ that I’m sharing here. His talk touched something of a raw nerve for me – the importance and power of telling stories with your photography and how that story can be amplified by the combination with words.
Check out Alan’s talk below and more from Photographers@Google by clicking here.
I was simple stunned when I first saw Mitch Dobrowner’s photographs of storms in Lenswork – the image above only scratches the surface of this unique body of work. It’s been interesting to follow the increase in awareness of Dobrowner’s storm photographs over the last few years which has included everything from stories in Wired magazine, National Geographic Magazine and coverage on CNN and ABC. A book of the storm photographs was published by Aperture in Sept. of 2013.
Listen to Mitch describe his work and see him in action below in the video below and click on the link to hear his artists talk at the photo-eye gallery.
After first coming across Clyde Butcher’s work in Photo Technique Magazine I’ve enjoyed finding out more about his life and his photography. The videos below are a good introduction. Check them out:
I wish I could remember how I came across the work of Eoghan Kavanagh. Most likely an extended wandering from some other Ireland based photographers.
Eoghan is based in Kenmare, Co. Kerry which gives him easy access to many of Ireland’s great locations. Check out more of Eoghan’s work here and in the videos below.
The people that I feature in these Friday Inspiration posts are artists whose work I enjoy looking at and so it’s natural that I follow what they doing. I particularly enjoy Thomas Joshua Cooper’s seascapes and was quite pleased to find a longer video of him talking about his atlantic basin project. Check it out below:
While I was looking for videos of Cooper talking about his work I found another video, a conversation facilitated by Roger Wilson between Chris Wainwright & Thomas Joshua Cooper about their work, the journeys that they take and what it is to be an artist. Well worth a look.
Sebastião Salgado’s new book Genesis was waiting for me when I got home from vacation. It’s an amazing book, that represents the culmination of an almost 10 year project to photograph mountains, deserts, oceans, people and animals that have so far escaped change the onslaught of modern society. The book, it’s 517 pages !, is organized geographically into five chapters : Planet South, Sanctuaries, Africa, Northern Spaces, Amazonia and Pantanal. As you might expect if you know Salgado’s work the photographs are lush black and white.
This interview on the Canon Europe website is an excellent read.
