- Do something old in a new way
- Do something new in an old way
- Do something new in a new way, Whatever works . . . works
- Do it sharp, if you can’t, call it art
- Do it in the computer—if it can be done there
- Do fifty of them—you will definitely get a show
- Do it big, if you can’t do it big, do it red
- If all else fails turn it upside down, if it looks good it might work
- Do Bend your knees
- If you don’t know what to do, look up or down —but continue looking
- Do celebrities—if you do a lot of them, you’ll get a book
- Connect with others—network
- Edit it yourself
- Design it yourself
- Publish it yourself
- Edit, When in doubt shoot more
- Edit again
- Read Darwin, Marx, Joyce, Freud, Einstein, Benjamin, McLuhan, and Barth
- See Citizen Kane ten times
- Look at everything—stare
- Construct your images from the edge inward
- If it’s the “real world,” do it in color
- If it can be done digitally—do it
- Be self-centered, self-involved, and generally entitled and always pushing— and damned to hell for doing it
- Break all rules, except the chairman’s
- Don’t do it about yourself—or your friend—or your family
- Don’t dare photograph yourself nude
- Don’t look at old family albums
- Don’t hand color it
- Don’t write on it
- Don’t use alternative process—if it ain’t straight do it in the computer
- Don’t gild the lily—AKA less is more
- Don’t go to video when you don’t know what else to do
- Don’t photograph indigent people, particularly in foreign lands
- Don’t whine, just produce
The Truisms
Whoever originated the idea will surely be forgotten until he or she’s dead—corollary: steal someone else’s idea before they die
If you have to imitate, at least imitate something good
Know the difference
Critics never know what they really like
Critics are the first to recognize the importance of that which is already known in the community at large
The best critics are the ones who like your work
Theoreticians don’t like to look—they’re generally too busy writing about themselves
Given enough time, theoreticians will contradict and reverse themselves
Practice does not follow theory
Theory follows practice
All artists think they’re self-taught
All artists lie, particularly about their dates and who taught them
No artist has ever seen the work of another artist (the exception being the post-modernists who’ve adapted appropriation as another means of reinventing the history)
The curator or the director is the one in black
The artist is the messy one in black
The owner is the one with the Prada bag
The gallery director is the one who recently uncovered the work of a forgotten person from his or her widower
Every galleriest has to discover someone
Every curator has to re-discover someone
The best of them is the one who shows your work
Every generation re-discovers the art of photography
Photography history gets reinvented every ten years
New galleries discover old photographers
Galleries need to fill their walls—corollary: thus new talents will always be found
Galleriests say hanging pictures is an art
There are no collectors, only people with money
Anyone who buys your work is a collector—your parents don’t count
All photographers are voyeurs
Admit it and get on with looking
Everyone, is narcissistic, anyone can be photographed
Photography is about looking
Learning how to look takes practice
All photography, in the right context at the right time is valuable
It is always a historical document
Sooner or later someone will say it is art
Any photographer can call himself an artist,
But not every artist can call himself a photographer
Compulsiveness helps
Neatness helps too
Hard work helps the most
The style is felt—fashion is fad
Remember, its usually about who, what, where, when, why, and how
It is who you know ,
Many a good idea is found in a garbage can
But darkrooms are dark. . . and dank, forgidaboudit
The best exposure is the one that works
Expose for the shadows, and develop for the highlights
Or better yet, shoot digitally.
Cameras don’t think, they don’t have memories
But digital cameras have something called memory
Learn to see as the camera sees, don’t try to make it see as the human eye
Remember digital point and shoots are faster than Leicas
Though the computer can correct anything,a bad image is a bad image
If all else fails, you can remember, again, to either do it large or red
Or, tear it up and tape it together
It always looks better on the wall framed
If they don’t sell, raise your price
Self-importance rises with the prices of your images on the wall
The work of a dead artist is always more valuable than the work of a live one
You can always pretend to kill yourself and start all over.
Good work sooner or later gets recognized
There are a lot of good photographers who need it
before they are dead
If you walk the walk, sooner or later you’ll learn to talk the talk
If you talk the talk too much, sooner or later you are probably not walking the walk (don’t bullshit)
Photographers are the only creative people that don’t pay attention to their predecessors work—if you imitate something good, you are more likely to succeed