Shamelessness and Entitlement
Shameless
I get a lot of entitled requests but this one takes the cake.
When my book came out I got a lot of press. The work was acquired by a major museum - my print sales spiked. I was interviewed everywhere for podcasts and publications like The New Yorker and Dazed. The work I put into a ten-year project was having a real moment.
As a result, I get a lot of requests enquiring about private lessons. I often do one-on-one training with students who want a masterclass. I have great experiences with those who sign up for mentorship with me. For around two hundred bucks an hour I’ll give you a private lesson and help you push your skill set to the next level. Why? Because I’m qualified to do so.
And yet, sometimes I get a request that is so tone deaf and entitled, I can’t keep it to myself.
Never mind the constant barrage of amateurs (always men) writing to me to ask how they can essentially, copy my flash. I ignore those. But someone I never met, who is a veritable beginner, actually has the gall to say something like this:
An excerpt from an actual email I received.
It is an insult to everything I’ve worked for. This is so big of a problem that Dina Litovsky even wrote an article about it.
Look, I get it. You have to start somewhere. But busting down the door with your expectations that I owe you anything is ridiculous. I’m a photographer. That’s it. I’m a machine, built to shoot, make work, tell stories, fail, succeed, go broke and repeat.
In a one-hour lesson, rather than focus on the work, this person wants my contacts, my partnership contacts and introductions so editors at premium publications. Publications who approached me directly. I did not go to them. Why? Because of my work and reputation. Period. This person wants what I have without paying their dues.
Shamelessly, they even requested
“contacts you can provide me with that may be able to help”.
The relationships I’ve forged over decades are not for sale. Go out and make your own. Here was my response:
My reply.
I’ve paid my dues, over and over and over again. I’ve worked hard. I apply for and sometimes receive grant money; I sell my work to major collections; I’ve published a successful monograph and just inked a deal for a second one. This did not happen because someone handed me a list of contacts. Nor did it happen in a one hour lesson with a mentor. I went out and made the work first.
Early in my career, I apprenticed (unpaid) with some of the greatest geniuses of our time. MacArthur Fellows, Pullitzer Prize winners and Guggenheim fellows. I kept my head down, listened and learned. All the while, I went out to photograph what mattered to me. I knew I had to make the work and the career would come later.
To that point, I get nothing by hiding the ball. Occasionally, I will make introductions among people in my sphere who I think may vibe. I enjoy connecting people to each other when the energy is good. I am not competitive about this. Others have done it for me over the years, but this is because they offered. This has to be earned.
But smart people already know that.
So go out, make the work. Go broke. Apply for grants. Do open calls. Work three jobs like I did. Apprentice and work your way up. Listen, learn and shoot. Go to art fairs. Run your work around the globe (that’s right, the globe) to editors and publishers. Buy plane tickets. Stay in shit hotels. Break your neck hauling your gear around. Hemorrhage money you don’t have on film to shoot what matters to you. Photograph everything. Organize your work into projects. Find your edge. But don’t expect anyone to do it for you.
However, it isn’t all entitlement and delusion, because I also get messages like this:
And this:
These messages make it all worth it. Notes from people who see and appreciate the work and toil involved in making something with legs. The work touches them, and it means the world to me. These are people who are right-sized. Be like them. Be right-sized.
Now go out and earn it.
Love, Angela