blues...

i am not always proud of my country.....well, let's just say that i am not always pleased with the "official side" of things....but, of course, it is my right to not always approve of decisions made by those who have been elected to high office....so, i have my vote and i use my vote...but, the one thing of which i have always had a sincere appreciation for is  most of the folks who live here....the 99% who just want to take care of their personal lives, support their families, and live as good and simple a life as possible...

the Mississippi River Delta is flat country....not a hill in sight...often way too cold or way too hot....there is a beauty to it, but it is subtle.....large plantation owners used to rule this delta country.....having often hundreds of slaves to pick cotton which was barged down river to New Orleans and then shipped all over the world....people all over the world wore shirts made from the cotton coming from the fields all around the small house where i am now staying...sitting here, i can feel the history....my fantasy for "time travel" would be to go back in time.....i try to imagine now what it may have been like 100 years ago  in the spot where i now sit.....i can almost  "smell" the history  as a thunder storm rolls loud and black  across the flats, creating waves in the wheat fields resembling now a green tumultuous sea....

from these former cotton fields and cotton pickers came art....out of commerce, out of slavery, out of greed, out of necessity, out of Africa, came art...yes, the one pure contribution from my country of which i am very proud is the MUSIC....yes, the music; blues, jazz, rock n'roll and , yes, rap , came from these cotton fields.....in all of the arts , music, sculpture, painting, photography, filmmaking, opera, ballet etc. no one country or culture "owns" all of it....but, out of these cotton fields and out of these little one room churches came the voice of an enslaved people....and the voice of the music that came from the fields where i now write to you, is...yes,  the BLUES.... this art, this voice, is still heard around the world....and an art form no other country can claim...think Robert Johnson,  Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker....

i am here to photograph families on my cross country project.....and it is all about the "blues"....i almost feel like never leaving here....i would like to meet more families...the folks i have photographed this week have been so so gracious...way way beyond the cliché "southern hospitality".....i will deliver quickie prints today to the family i photographed yesterday...the family of 84 yr. old blues singer  T Model Ford...my pictures have him in front of  his  humble home ...but in this modest house is a photo gallery....T Model's wife Stella has curated this "show" and has lined the walls with snapshots of his life and performing  travels bringing  these "cotton fields back home" to his international fans...

often here we  discuss a multitude of factors that make up  a "life in photography"....most of you are young ,and the rest  of you young at heart, but  every once in awhile someone on this forum  mentions their age.....says something like "well, at my age it is probably too late to start a career in photography".......yesterday, T Model told his story... took another sip out of his ever present bottle of Jack Daniels...sang a bit...just for fun...he always has fun....grinning  he told me that he did not even pick up a guitar until he was 58 years old...T Model  said " yes, my  fifth  wife brought home a guitar one day and ordered , you gonna be a blues man...well, i was born in a ditch...i been shot, stabbed and poisoned...i cannot read or write... but i picked up that guitar she brought  and taught myself how to play".....now, people from all over the world come to hear T Model......he is one of the most popular singers on the blues circuit ...so, listen up...any live performance now by the likes of B.B.King, Jimmy Burns, Mississippi Slim ,Honey Boy Edwards, Willie King,  and T Model  should be savored....there ain't gonna be any more comin' quite like these boys....

so, my question to you today should be obvious...do you let your age (either "too young" or "too old") influence how you think about your work, or are you oblivious (as i am) to your "calendar age" and move forward  with gusto???

T Model photographed by Michael Lloyd Young

Comments

[Velibor Bozovic]

Well, I am 42, I have family, wife and two children... Just last year I gave up on my engineering career (after working for many years as an engineer in an aerospace company)and plunged into this, doing photography full time. Well, that answers your question, I guess... There is never back, only forward.

[wrobertangell]

Hi David
lovely photo. your experience their sounds really awesome. I love the blues and all the different branches that came from that old tree. Leadbelly to Coltrane.
funny, I was listening to an early Chuck Berry album, a crackly first pressing of greatist hits on chess. I was hootin and hollerin cause its a pretty old record, but so on point today. I love that record.
anyway, I wondered if you ever tried to figure out the age of the people who's work you've looked at but never met. if its apparent by their work, if it looks youthfull or mature.
sometimes I think my own work looks old, but I find some inspiration in old work. also I think that the guys back in the early days, pioneer days, those guys worked their asses off. they had to. and yet the imagery looks old. must have looked like science fiction back then though

[Linda O.]

David -- I just found your blog recently and feel compelled to chime in... Why should how old we are or for that matter what sex we are or what color we are dictate what we can or can't do in our lives?! Why limit ourselves? We should be soaking each day for every moment and opportunity and try to capture and document those magic moments to inspire others to do the same. I mean -- isn't it infectious when you see someone oozing life?! And when you get some peace and knowledge mixed in -- well... Or when you see work or life showing fragility -- wow, that makes you embrace your blessings. All of it can be gold. In answer to your question -- the only thing getting older has done for me is make me braver and more thoughtful about making each day count as well as taking care of myself so I can keep going. The Aborigines think 60 is just middle age, so seems appropriate that T Model is going strong.

[bobblack]

my birthday is Sunday...this moment Im the same young man as is my good friend from MontrealbywayofSarajevo Veba (that'd be Velibor)...im the same age i now as I was 35 years ago when i jumped off the 2nd story roof of our family's barn into the arms of grassy tractor blow...i'll be on sunday the same age i will be the day i pick up my hip from the rock of a chair and now that'll be the last moment my hip scatters itself across the room...i've always been the same age, only othes dont see that, nor my body always pays that nuff mind, nor my friends nor wife nor parents nor son nor friends...

it blue long ago in my life in blue for long time now comin and it will blue until it cant blow no more y'all...been dying and disappearing since the day i can remember and fuck if it aint happened none the yet and that can mean only one thing, im still younger than death and that's pretty fucking young and im, even when wearied, happy bout all that...

and the same for me about photography, there's Ma Rainey:

"They hear it come out, but they don't know how it got there. They don't understand that's life's way of talking. You don't sing to feel better. You sing 'cause that's a way of understanding life..."--Ma Rainey

running

b

[Jarle Kavli Jørgensen]

great story david...could feel the inspiration of blues in your writing.
with regards to age, i tell myself, and often tell other that are both younger and older than i, as probably many of us also feel, and famous ppl have also mentioned before - that you are never as old or young as you feel, and i think it certainly doesn't help worrying about getting older...fair enough to reflect . i heard the other day, that a human being is capable of reaching the age of 120 or so (which according to Linda O.'s comment on the aborigines would make sence...thus, plenty of time left for all of us youngsters...

peace,
jarle

[Julien Lambert]

Bonsoir David, bonsoir à tous,

My name is Julien, I'm 25 and I'm french. I've just finished a cinematography school in Brussel in Belgium. I've lived here for 4 years.
This is the first time I write on this very intelligent blog. I love reading every comments of this blog because it's so rare that people take time to think about what's going on around the world, talking about various subjects from their point of view, listening to people. I have never seen that on the internet before.

I love blues music, David, I didn't know that you were working on a cross country projet. I would love to see one of your picture taking in that same place with this bluesman with your point of view.

I love taking pictures in order to discover the world and i guess to discover a bit of myself too. It's probably stupid, but i consider myself a little young to understand what i'm doing when i press the button, i need time. Taking pictures is a very important thing because of the people who are in front of you, you must respect them. I've just looked at the book of Paolo Pellegrin " As I was dying", p.24, "Serb women crying a death- Kosovo2000, this photo is so "strong" (correct word?), so interesting. I admire the place of the photograph here.

I'm sorry for my english, this website helps me to improve it ;)
Thank you again for this blog. David, if one day you come over here (brussel, paris, Normandie), please tell me.
Julien

[Linda O.]

Hey Bob Black-- Your words "been dying and disappearing since the day I can remember" and "Am still younger than death" should be in a blues song. Good stuff.

Hey Velibor-- As a former test subject for NASA, glad you decided to follow your heart.

[Herve]

"well, at my age it is probably too late to start a career in photography".......
-----
Well, David, the blues is not a career. What would be sad is to say I can't do this or that, meaning a craft, an art form, a trip, because of age. If that leads to a new career, fine, but one may also achieve much, at least in one own's eye, without being driven to make a job of it.

Anyway, I am probably closer to have a "career" (may not be photography) when 58 than 25... ;-)

It has always been a wish of mine, and i hope to do the Mississipi delta trip one day. I am glad that even as things may have changed in the last decades, there is still much to experience, reading you.

[mike]

David,
Thanks so much for the story... I'm a huge T-Model Ford fan (also all his label-mates at Fat Possum Records)... I don't think there is an iPod out there that wouldn't want to have some T-Model on itself. Can't wait for your book to come out!

[Pete Marovich]

Well, to quote a lyric from one of my favorite independent artists, Angie Aparo : "I was born at the end of time, in the beginning."

How old am I? They say I turned 47 on Sunday. But they also say that sometimes I act like I am 18.

Course I feel like I have been around for a few hundred years. Not in the physical sense, I guess more the metaphysical.

Anyway, to answer the question... What was the question?

Oh yeah,

No I don't think so. Hopefully my "experience" that I have BECAUSE of my age is an influence, but otherwise, no.

Hope that makes sense... or maybe dementia has set in.

[Jean-Sébastien Bréault]

"im still younger than death and that's pretty fucking young " (bobblack)

I love this sentence ! It says exactly what I felt begining to read this story.

[Martin Brink]

DAVID,

I don't think you're ever too old, but it makes things harder, but that doesn't mean that you can succeed anyway..
In a way I think that all people, wether shooting or not are photographers. What are we drawn to? what do we see? Then of cours there's technique, training and discipline in it too + the energy to bring the camera and aim it :)
Regarding myself, I'm 23 years old and I wish I could do live of photography, but if things don't start to happen within 1 or 2 years I have to give it up and find another way of supporting myself, of course still photographing though, but the "falior" will probably put me off a little. Don't misunderstand me, photography is not only a way make money for me.

Cheers

[Velibor Bozovic]

Dear Bob, happy B-day, Pete too... Mine is tomorrow actually, few May people here...

Here is another Mississippi treasure...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZxQlZw8k9Q&feature=related

[bobblack]

LINDA O: :))))...merci beaux-cup! :))...i guess all poets are really singing and humming da blues, and i was howling-typin' with 1 hand and waving to a friend with the other...if any blues guitar's are here: they can use, but i keep the copyright of what i wrote..:))...unless y'all pass it down the line :))

VEBa: OK, what that does it...will call u this weekend....knew we were more than kin: i guess its astrological, rather than geographical ;))...call u tomorrow...

PETE: ditto dudE! :)))...any Taurus can come over to my neck of the woods and howl over juice any day any time...good god damn for u! :)))

this goes out to you Veba:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZfpkLUT-w8

[bobblack]

and of course, from the young boy who returned Leadbelly to an ache-filled tossed generation...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEtDC6MuImU&feature=related

[Charlie Mahoney]

Definitely, definitely OBLIVIOUS!

[anton]

whew... inspirational ... makes me feel like discovering more blues music... and wow to the leadbelly links too...

and YES bobblack... MISTER bobblack, that IS the way to say it "im still younger than death and that's pretty fucking young"...

hear hear to that one

maybe age is not relevant to start a career... i hope so, otherwise i'm going to feel very old very quickly... on the other hand i lately have a sense, a kind of URGENCY like "do it now, time is running out, you only live once,..." that kind of urgency, and i honestly don't know where that came from.

QUESTION: is this a good thing or not to have?????

i guess, as long as the mosquitoes keep on stinging, there must be some "youngness" somewhere inside me.

...

(actually i'm just saying this because i got stung an hour ago - and it itches like hell)

so i must be still young then, no time to waste! career! hold on! here i come!

any pointers for a 33 year old youngster like me?

:)

peace
anton

[Chris Hinkle]

Great day to be talking about birthdays as today is mine : ) I'm 36...I picked up the camera when I was 30 and shortly thereafter new that I wanted to be a photographer...its as if it was what I was searching for my whole life. My inspiration and motivation in starting so late was Galen Rowell whom also picked up the camera late in life and made some amazing landscape photography.

Great story and photo of T Model. We live in such a place that we can do a complete 180 in our careers at any time in our life, its definitely something to take advantage of. Of course I still feel behind and probably always will as there is always way too much to learn and never enough time to learn it all but then again what good is it to know it all?

~ chris

[Patricia Lay-Dorsey]

First of all, David, I want to thank you for taking us down to that flat Delta land where cotton is king and the blues are as much a way of life as it is music, at least for some. Meeting T Model was a privilege. His story says it all.

Your question touches me on many levels. In June I will be turning 66 so I guess that might seem old to some, but not to me. My experience of life has been that EVERYTHING is possible. As the late Yogi Berra said, it ain't over till it's over. And believe you me, I have just begun!

Your question also taps into a project I will soon be undertaking, assuming my proposal is accepted, as I expect it to be.

I will be photographing the women and men who take classes at a Senior Learning Center here in the middle of Detroit. I already hope to include the 93 year-old woman who gardens with the help of her walker, and the woman from India who wears her sari to dig in the dirt. I also want to capture these elders dancing the hustle at the center, and sharing their oral histories at a nearby senior residence. These are just a few of the many classes offered. I'm also hoping to build relationships with individuals so that I can take photos of them at home. I can't wait to begin!

So to answer your question, I expect to learn from these people that life is to be lived FULL OUT until your very last breath!!!

[Nancy Paiva]

I am an old lady by some standards but I could drink whiskey til you fall under the table and I will still find the energy to dance to It's Raining Men at four o'clock in the morning just like twenty years ago. No one can say that I lack passion...

Since I have found photography somewhat late in life it almost seems like I have to make up for lost time.

[Michael Kircher]

Yes...oblivious. Have to be, otherwise NOTHING would get done!

[Ignacio Aronovich]

David,

great story! inspiring as always. age is never a concern if one is reasonably healthy and motivated. oblivious...

abrazos,

ig

[Herve]

im still younger than death and that's pretty fucking young"...
----------------------------

Though, come to think of it.... Death is no end to a career, for so many deceased artists who found a bright young future as they crapped out. ;-)

It's not anymore how young or old are you, but how posthumous! So, keep shooting, everyone, death is not the end of a career, and might actually be the start of one...

I was wrong quoting myself at 58, make it 150 and over! :-)

[lisa Hogben]

Age?

What is that?

[cathy scholl]

I watch THE HILLS, read Perez Hilton daily and am a HIP HOP dancer. :))
That should say it all!!!
Definitely ageless, even without botox :))

[Herve]

my pictures have him in front of his humble home
----------------------

Ok, David, how about his backyard? I mean, trust Youtube suscribers, they do cover all... Grounds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRgytwEKg-Y

(I only wish they left him play and sing alone....)

[Glenn]

I'd love to take a rip through the deep south Dave ,I reckon that it woud be a lot like the North of Oz , the smells ,the light , the thunder and lightning - But the people - there's something about the closer to the equator a people get the more crazier they are ,I was musing on the age thing only Sunday when I woke up with a dog pissing on my swag - "Christ I'm doing the same thing I was doing 20 years ago" - Have I come full circle ,just to be back shooting Bush races and Rodeos after taking pictures for 20 years?
Back from whence I came,
I'm the oldest, young photographer I know!
@BOB - Great words Brotherman !

[Panos Skoulidas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym2piLdWef4&feature=related

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYBODY !!!

[tom hyde]

And don' forget Pinetop Perkins who I had the honor of meeting years ago. He's still going strong at 95, and got his first Grammy at 94.

[Panos Skoulidas]

As a former test subject for NASA, glad you decided to follow your heart.

Posted by: Linda O. | May 13, 2008 at 04:22 PM

"test subject for NASA"...?
???????????????????????????????????????????????????...
I know ...i'm curious, i know...

[David McGowan]

I'm 40 next month, single, no children, still get carded now and then (though not as much as say, two years ago) working on a second "career" and I'm nowhere near the photographer I hope to be. Not that I'll ever stop shooting, but I was thinking recently, I can't imagine I'll ever be in a situation where I have a traditional retirement. No pension. No retirement fund. Nothing but negs and data.

Somehow I'm not scared.

Big day tomorrow. More later.

[Panos Skoulidas]

speaking of BLUES and Venice...
( shot 48 hours ago... in the "WherelseVenicelandia")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blAmbZJR09w

[daniel]

Hi all

I'm a spanish photographer based in Valencia..I knew David Alan here during a workshop last year.

I'm an engineer, when I was 30 with my first children coming I decided to follow my own way.. I resign and began to learn photography, now I can earn a salary as a photographer, commercial work mostly of course...I'm happier and poorer, but I feel I'm in the correct way for me.
When I comunicate this to my parents, friends, etc,..the look at me as a was crazy (I've a camera only from 28)
Each person has problems and circumstance, sometimes is posible to do "the change" sometimes is too much dificcult, age is a mental barrier... work, children and mortgage are the most important barriers.

Thanks a lot for the bolg

[Panos Skoulidas]

Watch a typical fight between "good" vendors and "bad" ones,
on the boardwalk fighting for some "space" under the sun, to sell
and survive...!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCNnvhrVMgU&NR=1

[audrey bardou]

Hello,
in 29 years, I resigned from my work and I set up my own business as photographer. I returned to live at my parent's, I am 32 years old today and I am always at my parent's (I don't know if you know the French film Tanguy, it is me!)... and nevertheless, I am happier now without money to them to make my photography... I think that the age has no importance, it is the photos which we make who(which) are important, the age which we have in the head, we are all condemned persons to die as soon as we are born, I was very early conscious of it, then it is necessary to live the present moment, we don't know that tomorrow what will be made... what I like in the photography, it is that a whole life is not enough to learn it...

[Herve]

David Mc Gowan: No pension. No retirement fund. Nothing but negs and data.
---------------------

That's a beginning! Make sure you add a doggone no good woman leaving you for another man, and pick up a guitar, David, I see the making of a few good blues songs here! ;-)

[Linda O.]

There's a the start of a song here courtesy of words from David, his T Model posse and you bloggers… and it goes like this...
I woke up with a dog pissing on my swag, not a hill in sight, not a hill in sight, the Mississippi River Delta is flat country.... often way too cold or way too hot, sitting here, where I began reading Dah’s blog, sitting here,
I can feel the Delta history....... there is a beauty to it, but it is subtle... as i was howling-typin' with 1 hand and waving to a friend with the other, got stung ‘bout an hour ago - and it itches like hell... but i guess, as long as the mosquitoes keep on stinging, there must be some "youngness" somewhere inside me, sitting here with Dah’s bloggers, scratching, and sitting here,
well, i was born in a ditch...i been shot, stabbed and poisoned...i cannot read or write... but i picked up that guitar my 5th wife brought and taught myself to play in the spot where i now sit, sitting here, picking on my guitar satisfied, sitting here,
i can almost "smell" the history as a thunder storm rolls loud and black… across the flats, creating waves… in the wheat fields resembling now a green tumultuous sea, Aborigines think 60 is middle age so my fifth wife ordered me. she said --you’re only 58 and you gonna be a blues man... I said me? She said uh-huh...so, listen up, get a move on and listen up...
just do what you do with your heart and mind open. If it’s strumming or shooting or howl-typin’… And believe you me maybe some raw truth will emerge… if you do it with your whole being.
been dying and disappearing since the day I can remember, but I’m still younger than death and that's pretty fucking young, sitting here, oblivious, making pictures with gusto , living, laughing, running… writing on Dah’s blog, sitting here.

[Linda O.]

Yeah Panos... sometimes a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do to stay behind a camera -- even eat space food for a month and live on the shuttle for a week while they tested the scrubber. Some people are just not made for the corporate world...

[anton]

LINDA

GREAT "lyrics"!!!!!!!!!!!!

really sums it up... someone should actually put this to music :)

peace
anton

[pierre yves]

Hi everyone !

We say, in, french :

"je ne puis être que ce que les autres pensent de moi"

which would translate into

"I am nothing but what people think I am".

So my question is :

Do you think that photographers are seen differently when they're young (by the audience in general but also by photo editors, peer photographers, etc.) ?

For instance, do you think that Donovan Wylie made it more easily into Magnum since he was very young when he did his trip round Ireland ?

Since you know Magnum or Nat Geo very well now, can you tell more, as far as these institutions are concerned, David ?

Cheeers !

[Jason Hobbs]

hi david,

that was a beautiful posting, i'm a big blues fan, so i wish i were there.....i was only listening to blind willie mctell the other day.

as for age it means nothing to me. why should it? why should age determine what i do? i think that anyone who lets age get in the way of what they would really love to do is just finding a way to be conformist.....to play it safe. personally i'm planning on growing old disgracefully......

J

[bobblack]

LINDA O! :))))))))))))))))))!!!!!....

DAVID: You wanna push those lyrics, ones tuned up by Linda O, past Model T and see what he can do with 'em? :))))))))....and folks thought, long long ago, this blog be only about photography: shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittt...it's been about the livin from day 1! :)))

GLEN: :)))...thanks bro, send u some words today...tree 2: shimmering dream beauty: twighlith of our idol'd selves ;)))

running
b

[David McGowan]

That's brilliant Herve! I kind of walked right into that one.

[Paul Treacy]

I personify gusto. I'll be 39 in 3 weeks and aside from my twitchy back, I have copious energy.

Being as I am in the final stage of my thirties, I seem to have gathered in some experience and dare I say it, a little wisdom. Being a father and a husband and having traveled some I feel that I'm only beginning to hit my stride photographically. It takes a long time to learn to speak this language with eloquence. It's certainly taking me a while. But I'm getting there. I'm finding my "voice".

I'm very much looking forward to my 40's. I'm fortunate to have a youthful exuberance about me and an insatiable appetite for simple experiences. Last evening I went for a walk late with my three year old while his brother did his homework. I got in trouble for his being late for his bath but I just had to go to the playground to get a lungful of the pungent wisteria alongside. It was entirely delicious and it afforded me a kind of bliss. Connor too.

Appreciating the simple pleasures in life comes with maturity I think. And to combine that with vitality and energy makes for a potent mix with which to fuel the photographic mind. This is a new revelation for me and powers me forward.

I'm finishing my new interactive site today and for the next few days. Thereafter it'll be all about selling my work and making thoughtful and compelling new photography. I just want to get to the core, photographically, of what boyhood is all about.

Bring on summer, I say.

[Paul Treacy]

Wow! how I love all the brilliant brain stuff spilling out all over this blog place. This stuff of living. Of living a photographer's life.

David, your opening words are beautifully crafted. They ooze poetry. As do the words of so many here.

Yum!

[lee Guthrie]

Good morning all and happy birthday May babies.

I did not pick up a camera, seriously to shoot that is, until about 6 years ago. Prior to that I designed and supervised the building of my homes for resale. Prior to that I had opened up a consignment shop. Prior to that I had started my own typing service. Prior to that I gave birth!!!

With each of them: I had never spent time with babies, I did not know how to type, I had never worked or owned a retail business, I didn't know the words feng shui, and I got very confused trying to remember that the bigger the aperture the smaller the number.

At 57 I am teaching a photo class in a private school (no training to be a teacher nor did I go to college except for classes that I liked) and find I have an ability to teach. Due to photography I now know about cultures and belief systems and windmill farms; all of these topics would not have become known to me if I had refused to take up a camera and become the official photographer for a group of whirling dervishes with the excuse that I didn't even know how to set my white balance on my new camera. And even what was white balance?!?!?!?

If a person allows it, life will build a series of careers and lifestyles to keep you interested and interesting until you die.

Through those years of changing interests and work I never really recognized the collective until now when I can look back and see just how each phase and new skill developed and led into another.

I am still wondering where this latest work will take me. But I know that in retrospect 10 years down the road it will be somewhere I never even imagined and I will be thankful that I didn't refuse the gift because others might have thought me too old to begin a new work or believed it when I was told it was just a hobby to spend my money on.

Never say no to new endeavors.

Lee

[David McGowan]

Yikes! Well I knew I had to grow up someday. I'm the photographer (exclusive?) to Obama's small pre-rally fund raiser here tonight. I even saw the line "professional photographer on hand" and looked around like "are they talking about me?" Wish me luck.

[Herve]

Wish me luck
------------------
yes, and to find the angle for a different approach than the usual podium and photo-op series.
You are the most important person in the hall tonight. The creator!

PS: Hi to Michelle!

[David McGowan]

That's right Herve, no pressure at all. Although I am required to get the photo op stuff, I'll try to make a story of it.

I'm out!

[marcin luczkowski]

..... says something like "well, at my age it is probably too late to start a career in photography"

I'm 31 and damn! I have no idea what the hell means "career"... especialy in photography!
I understand that if I want (and I want usually) I put my camera to my eye and push the shutter release button...
I even understand that somebody want to pay for that...
I understand that some of photographers are damn good...
and some even more than "damn good"...
but "career" ???...
$$$$$$$

probably that's why I have not $$$$
but I have a lot of fun...

peace... & rythm & blues
running...