Fascinating read Jefferey. I've been helping my 16-year-old autistic son navigate these same waters lately. When he was younger he published a lot on YouTube and built a channel of over 25k subscribers. This was when he cared not a jot about numbers or earnings or any of that. Now he'd like to make it more of a career and he's overthinking everything so much that he's frozen in the headlights. So we've decided that he's going to ditch his channel and start again.
Me? I'm okay. I publish very personal things and, in those things, I explore what my motivation might be. It's all to do with cultivating positive mental health and sobriety while trying not to care about how what I make is received. My wish is that it makes me feel well and leads to others learning how they might feel well, too. A British pound or two would certainly help, but I'm trying not to make that too much of a motivator.
I take inspiration from what you and Sean talk about. I'm definitely one of your 1000 true fans. I guess that's what I'm looking for too.
Good stuff here. Primarily the issue of the audience role.
As a part-time photographer (not my day job, but a side business) I can make money doing portrait and event photography. But when it comes to passion, I wholeheartedly embrace the "amateur" label (even while I pursue exhibits and the hope of actually selling something). Everything I do now is for me, primarily focused on curation. I want to be the best me I can be, so self-assessment is about how I can improve in any and every way.
As you can see, the audience becomes irrelevant. And therefore, so does monetization. History is full of fantastic creators that had great trouble making ends meet. Even Bach looked for jobs, and Van Gogh only sold one painting during his (too short) life. My take-away is that the money is never guaranteed, no matter what you do or how good you are. Eleven years into my photography journey, I'm happy (an incredibly fortunate) that I get to do it all for fun, and any income is frosting.
Fantastic read. This is the struggle, it is so hard to let go and make what I want and now what is expected. Letting go of the expected and being my audience first is something that needs to become a daily mantra I think.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You seem to know how to vocalize what is going through my (and probably many others') mind.
I consider myself an amateur in everything I do besides my day job. I enjoy photography and mix-media mark making (not sure I can call it art without feeling like a poser). But the label amateur allows me to feel free. I create work for myself. I share some to feel somewhat connected to others, but mostly to keep from becoming a social hermit. The amateur status also keeps my work from letting me know and from me letting it down.
I am learning as I go (I guess you can also toss on the autodidact label). It keeps the journey exciting and allows me to develop processes that work for me and my environment.
But when I see individuals, such as yourself, with fantastic work, I can't help but wish it were available in some fashion. I'm not in an art-buying income bracket, but I'm a book junkie and would adorn my bookshelf with your work.
Thanks for the content you put into the world. It matters and is appreciated.
Even as someone who has never considered the monetization angle for what I put out into the world (unless you count the Field of Dreams approach I took to my Smug-mug gallery, where to this day the shopping cart has only ever seen cobwebs and dust), the topic of audience and motivation did definitely resonate. I'm a data engineer by profession, but it was never an aspiration. I sort of just stumbled into it, guided by the practical side of my psyche while the creative side hung out in the basement of my soul, let out ever so often when the landlord went soft.
Several years ago I really got into the realm of data visualization, as it seemed like a great way to blend those two competing sides of myself - I could be creative but in the service of something that had practical application. I spent a lot of hours pursuing it outside of work to the point where I got connected with a community of like-minded practitioners on Twitter who would contribute to a weekly visualization challenge. Each week a data set would drop and we would all attempt to visualize it in a way that was both effective and (hopefully) unique or inventive. Initially I just loved the challenge of it, the fact that I had a regular outlet to flex these creative muscles that I thought had atrophied. The encouragement and positive feedback I would get from peers was just a bonus.
But then, after a while, I found that, even though I still enjoyed the act of creating the visualizations, I was becoming addicted to the responses more than the process of creating them. After posting a visualization the night before, the first thing I'd do upon waking was check to see how many likes and comments it got. I almost didn't care about the content of the creation so long as it elicited an "appropriate" number of responses. And when one didn't, I'd feel deflated and go careening down the Twitter back alleys looking for some way to scratch my itch. Textbook social-media dopamine addiction.
The joy of the creative process had been replaced by a need for mob validation. What I put out there still connected and resonated with individuals (based on some of the genuine comments I received) but that was often overshadowed if my latest post received fewer responses than my last one or if someone else's post received more attention that week.
What this ultimately led to was me extracting myself from the entire process. I stopped posting. Each week's challenge was simply a cause for anxiety - what could I produce that would elicit the desired response? I didn't know how to reclaim that initial creative pleasure in the face of my perceived need to perform. Arguably that was too extreme of a response but I didn’t know what else to do at the time.
I’m trying to approach my photography differently. I still feel a deep need to connect with people via my photos, but I want to get there without metrics. My photos never garner more than a handful of likes to begin with, and I’m learning to care less about that. I know I don’t need to be a creative hermit - never letting the world see what I create - but I want to get back to a place of just enjoying the process, of being genuine with my expression vs having it steered by ulterior and/or desperate motives.
Being able to read your blog and listen to your podcasts is immensely helpful on that journey. So thank you again for doing what you do.
Fascinating read Jefferey. I've been helping my 16-year-old autistic son navigate these same waters lately. When he was younger he published a lot on YouTube and built a channel of over 25k subscribers. This was when he cared not a jot about numbers or earnings or any of that. Now he'd like to make it more of a career and he's overthinking everything so much that he's frozen in the headlights. So we've decided that he's going to ditch his channel and start again.
Me? I'm okay. I publish very personal things and, in those things, I explore what my motivation might be. It's all to do with cultivating positive mental health and sobriety while trying not to care about how what I make is received. My wish is that it makes me feel well and leads to others learning how they might feel well, too. A British pound or two would certainly help, but I'm trying not to make that too much of a motivator.
I take inspiration from what you and Sean talk about. I'm definitely one of your 1000 true fans. I guess that's what I'm looking for too.
Good stuff here. Primarily the issue of the audience role.
As a part-time photographer (not my day job, but a side business) I can make money doing portrait and event photography. But when it comes to passion, I wholeheartedly embrace the "amateur" label (even while I pursue exhibits and the hope of actually selling something). Everything I do now is for me, primarily focused on curation. I want to be the best me I can be, so self-assessment is about how I can improve in any and every way.
As you can see, the audience becomes irrelevant. And therefore, so does monetization. History is full of fantastic creators that had great trouble making ends meet. Even Bach looked for jobs, and Van Gogh only sold one painting during his (too short) life. My take-away is that the money is never guaranteed, no matter what you do or how good you are. Eleven years into my photography journey, I'm happy (an incredibly fortunate) that I get to do it all for fun, and any income is frosting.
Fantastic read. This is the struggle, it is so hard to let go and make what I want and now what is expected. Letting go of the expected and being my audience first is something that needs to become a daily mantra I think.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You seem to know how to vocalize what is going through my (and probably many others') mind.
I consider myself an amateur in everything I do besides my day job. I enjoy photography and mix-media mark making (not sure I can call it art without feeling like a poser). But the label amateur allows me to feel free. I create work for myself. I share some to feel somewhat connected to others, but mostly to keep from becoming a social hermit. The amateur status also keeps my work from letting me know and from me letting it down.
I am learning as I go (I guess you can also toss on the autodidact label). It keeps the journey exciting and allows me to develop processes that work for me and my environment.
But when I see individuals, such as yourself, with fantastic work, I can't help but wish it were available in some fashion. I'm not in an art-buying income bracket, but I'm a book junkie and would adorn my bookshelf with your work.
Thanks for the content you put into the world. It matters and is appreciated.
Another wonderful post Jeffery.
Even as someone who has never considered the monetization angle for what I put out into the world (unless you count the Field of Dreams approach I took to my Smug-mug gallery, where to this day the shopping cart has only ever seen cobwebs and dust), the topic of audience and motivation did definitely resonate. I'm a data engineer by profession, but it was never an aspiration. I sort of just stumbled into it, guided by the practical side of my psyche while the creative side hung out in the basement of my soul, let out ever so often when the landlord went soft.
Several years ago I really got into the realm of data visualization, as it seemed like a great way to blend those two competing sides of myself - I could be creative but in the service of something that had practical application. I spent a lot of hours pursuing it outside of work to the point where I got connected with a community of like-minded practitioners on Twitter who would contribute to a weekly visualization challenge. Each week a data set would drop and we would all attempt to visualize it in a way that was both effective and (hopefully) unique or inventive. Initially I just loved the challenge of it, the fact that I had a regular outlet to flex these creative muscles that I thought had atrophied. The encouragement and positive feedback I would get from peers was just a bonus.
But then, after a while, I found that, even though I still enjoyed the act of creating the visualizations, I was becoming addicted to the responses more than the process of creating them. After posting a visualization the night before, the first thing I'd do upon waking was check to see how many likes and comments it got. I almost didn't care about the content of the creation so long as it elicited an "appropriate" number of responses. And when one didn't, I'd feel deflated and go careening down the Twitter back alleys looking for some way to scratch my itch. Textbook social-media dopamine addiction.
The joy of the creative process had been replaced by a need for mob validation. What I put out there still connected and resonated with individuals (based on some of the genuine comments I received) but that was often overshadowed if my latest post received fewer responses than my last one or if someone else's post received more attention that week.
What this ultimately led to was me extracting myself from the entire process. I stopped posting. Each week's challenge was simply a cause for anxiety - what could I produce that would elicit the desired response? I didn't know how to reclaim that initial creative pleasure in the face of my perceived need to perform. Arguably that was too extreme of a response but I didn’t know what else to do at the time.
I’m trying to approach my photography differently. I still feel a deep need to connect with people via my photos, but I want to get there without metrics. My photos never garner more than a handful of likes to begin with, and I’m learning to care less about that. I know I don’t need to be a creative hermit - never letting the world see what I create - but I want to get back to a place of just enjoying the process, of being genuine with my expression vs having it steered by ulterior and/or desperate motives.
Being able to read your blog and listen to your podcasts is immensely helpful on that journey. So thank you again for doing what you do.