Quitting a job isn’t all that difficult.  I’ve done it more times than I can remember over the years.  All you have to do is stop going.

That’s the easy part. Then the fears and second-guessing begin. Now what do I do? Where’s the money going to come from? On and on it goes. I’ve always managed to land on my feet, but the sleepless nights can be damn wearing.  But still, I have little choice but to do it again. Soon. I’m getting close to 60 years old. I have too much I want to do with the second half of my life to waste any more of my time at a job.

Since I was last footloose this internet thing has really exploded. There are resources up the ass for making a living on it, some good and worthwhile, some frankly pretty cheesy. I tend to avoid those.

It seems to boil down to a few basic principles. Identify your niche, your passion, work your ass off to build a presence, and go for it. Heh. Sounds easy. It ain’t though. But it’s possible, and that’s good enough for me.

Here’s one interesting site about going your own way. It’s the blog of Chris Guillebeau called The Art of Non-Conformity.  It’s good stuff, down to earth stuff, by a guy who’s living what he talks about. Give it a look.

I’m still working on sorting the possibilities out.  If you’re working along the same lines, have any thoughts or ideas, give me a shout. Maybe we can pull our hair out together or something.

pj

You know, if I’m gonna continue to do this blog thing, I need to clear my head of all the crap I’ve done up ’til now, quit watching what others are doing and trying to emulate them, even if unintentionally, and do this my own way. There are four things I aim to live by on this blog. If I can come close to living up to them, well, there might be hope for me yet.

• I will only post what I want to post.  I don’t give a shit about popular opinion, or about search engine ranking, or any of that. If I have a photo I want to post, I’ll post it. The same goes if I have a rant, or a rave, that I want to get off my chest. If I want to say it I’ll say it. If I don’t, you’ll never see it.
• I will only post new work. No more digging into the past for post material. If I come up with some new photos that I like I’ll feature them here. If I don’t do anything new there will be nothing new to show. That’ll happen — that’s the way it goes. No more pulling work from the archives. If I want to use them, I’ll use them somewhere else. Not here.
• I’ll challenge conventional wisdom. In photography, and art, there are a lot of rules and cliches that most of us accept as gospel without ever questioning them. I’ll try to knock some of them right off their feet. What comes of that remains to be seen.
• I will quit my job. Yes, that is an aspect of why I do this. Jobs aren’t good for you. They suck. There comes a time when they interfere with real work. The older I get the harder time I’m having selling my time to some asshole for a few bucks an hour. I’ve never been good at that and it’s only getting worse. The time is coming soon, and I’ll either make it work or die trying. Enough is enough.

There you have it. Call these guidelines, or a manifesto, or whatever you will.  They are the first steps in the direction this blog needs to go. Throw in your two cents whenever you please. Cheers.

pj

This is as good a time as any to kind of start over with this blog. It’s easy to post about this, that, and whatever, but pretty soon you find yourself scattered all over the map, and your original intentions get lost along the way.  I find myself there now, and seeing as this version of photo montana is pretty new, it’s a good  time to sit back, slow down, take a breather, and get back on track. I’m posting without aim or purpose these days, and it’s high time I acknowledge that. So I will. I’ll probably give it a new name too as long as I’m at it.

I originally started blogging about photography for a few reasons. I wanted a place to show new stuff that I’m doing. I wanted to post about why I do the kind of photography I do. I wanted to talk about photography as an art form, as a means of self expression, and to be perfectly honest I’m interested in ways to make money, maybe even a living, through personal work. I’m not talking about commercial photography –  about the only ways of shooting for pay that even remotely interest me are shooting stock (maybe), and photojournalism (as much as I despise that term). Commercial photography is a pain in the ass, unless of course you enjoy the work. I’ve tried it and I didn’t like it. It’s a pain in the ass.

Making a living with personal photography, and blogging, would be ideal. Difficult yes, but ideal. The thought of firing the boss and walking away from a two-bit job is highly appealing. Who wouldn’t like that? Face it — many of us, if not most of us, hate our jobs, though there are a few who genuinely like theirs. I knew a guy like that once. Breaking free from that day to day shit is important to me. I’m getting too old to gracefully accept it. I’ll be looking into ways to make it happen, and I’m open to ideas.

Anyway, no need to ramble on. This place may be a bit quiet for awhile as I sort things out, but when it comes back to life it’ll be the blog I want it to be. Feel free to stop by anytime and toss out any thoughts and ideas you may have.

pj

Update 2/27: Yeah. OK. A new name. This blog has become just another lame, generic, boring as hell blog, and I’ve been having a nasty reaction to that. It’s time to give it a bit of attitude.

Most of us are familiar with the archive of photographs done by the WPA during the Great Depression. It is a magnificent collection of work done during a very dark time in our country’s history. Many of the works are photographic icons. Stark black and white images, they are still a part of our visual literature. Powerful, powerful stuff. So much so that many of us who were born after the depression grew up convinced that times were so tough in those days that even color didn’t exist. The world went on in black and white.

That’s not true of course, and a few years ago an exhibit was organized, and a book published of color work done by the WPA photographers. Bound for Glory it was called, and it’s a fascinating look at those troubled times. One thing that struck me about these photographs was that as hard as times were during the depression, life went on and the world did indeed exist in color. As hard as those days were, color adds a sense of normalcy to the scenes. Things just don’t look as grim as the black and white photos make them look.

I don’t know. To me the black and white photos have more emotional impact, but the color work seems more positive and optimistic and may be a more realistic look at life in the US during the Great Depression. Take a look and see what you think.