For me every new year is a chance for reinvention so with 2017 on the horizon I have been going through a period of deep self -reflection. 2015 was the year I became an artist and I built a portfolio of 40 pieces that I’m very proud of. 2016 was the year I spent most of my time on marketing that body of work and as a result I only created 12 pieces. It has been a year of highs and lows; a year where I started to make money and gain recognition for my work but also, somehow, had no time to create art.
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I’ve learnt so much about the art world—mainly that art is consumed differently from its hey-day in the 80s and yet it’s still trying to operate on an antiquated gallery-focused model. I’ve learnt that the art world, particularly in Australia, is divided between traditional and subversive and my work doesn’t fit into either box.
The Internet has given artists the opportunity for wider reach but it’s also flooded with competition so I’ve spent the majority of my year learning about arts marketing and implementing different strategies with limited success. I’ve seen so many fellow artists become marketers and educators – setting up online courses, mastering email marketing funnels, trying to make their work go viral – all in the hope that they’ll begin to make serious money from their art but in the process they lose the essence of what it is to make art. I don’t want this to happen to me. I signed up to be an artist, not a teacher, not a marketer.
So I’ve decided to stop buying into all this arts marketing crap and getting caught in the nets of people trying to capitalise on artists and instead focus on the things that make my heart sing.
The one useful thing I’ve learned is to picture exactly what I want my life and my business to look like and then work towards that goal every day.
This may surprise you but my ultimate goal is to travel and either get paid to do it or live off a passive income. In fact this line has been in my bio since day 1: “My dream is to travel around Australia creating photographic art in rural and iconic locations.” While I have been taking baby steps towards this goal, mainly through my travel Instagram account (@hayleyrtravels), it’s unlikely anyone looking at my art would even know this about me.
That’s why in 2017 I want to launch something new. My four passions are photography, travel, art and writing, in that order, and so I’m trying to create something that combines all four. I don’t know exactly what it will look like and the experimentation process has been really hard because it’s a whole new way of thinking and working, and I’m the kind of person who gets frustrated if I’m not good at something right away. It feels weird to be back at the drawing board but I know if I keep at it something will come together eventually.
The things I am working towards are:
As I learnt from my 2015 Exposing Illusions project I am a better artist when I have a project. So this new project will involve art pieces inspired by travel. I intend to create much more simply, art that takes hours instead of weeks, because I long for the wilderness and need to stop spending so much time at a computer.
I plan to sell prints and products made from my work using an online distributor at a price everyone can afford in the hope that these sales will fund future travel. I will also sell limited edition feature prints created by a professional printer at a higher, more collectible, price point. I will market this work to commercial, travel and stock agencies in the hope they see value in what I do.
Naturally this all terrifies me. Deep down I’m convinced that I will only ever be mediocre no matter how hard I try. But I need to try regardless.
For now I ask for your patience while I create this project and your assistance to help me fine-tune it. I’d like you to be my test audience and will ask for your honest feedback on various components. I’d love for you to be my champions, helping me get the word out about this project. I know that it will be a long journey to my end goal but I’m excited about all the things I will learn on the way. Come for a ride?
On Thursday 1 October I exhibited my work for the very first time at RAW Brisbane's MERGE showcase. After months of planning, buying things for my display and organising prints it was wonderful to finally have everything come together. There was a great response to my work with lots of positive feedback and people spent a long time looking at and discussing all my prints. A few artists expressed an interest in collaborating - one guy was so keen he gave me his daughter's business card twice! I am really grateful to all my friends and family who came along for support. I had a fun night and I couldn't have done it without you all! Congratulations to all my fellow artists on a successful night. If you're considering having a RAW exhibition of your own, they hold showcases worldwide and it's a fantastic experience I'd recommend to all artists. Photos courtesy of Noel Roberts and Elliot Tonks of Live Exposure. [gallery columns="4" size="large" link="file" ids="2484,2488,2489,2485,2486,2487,2496,2490,2491,2493,2494,2497,2498,2500,2501,2502,2499,2504,2492,2503"]
How often have you looked at a photo and thought, ‘how did they do that?’ Among a sea of selfies and food shots some photographs are so intriguing or beautiful that they demand your attention and make you wonder. But what might be a fleeting interest for some, for me is an obsession. I don’t usually pull things apart to see how they tick but knowing the tricks the great photographers use enhances the magic for me rather than ruining it. And after years of studying these techniques I want to share them with you so that you too can appreciate the process of creation and not just the end product. And so the ‘Exposing Illusions’ blog will see me attempt, and no doubt sometimes fail, to reproduce a photography technique each week.
My journey with photography began in high school where I spent a semester studying black and white photography before quickly realising that spending time in a stuffy dark room with a bunch of unpredictable chemicals wasn’t my idea of a good time (nightclubs excluded). Besides, back then I was more a video girl, all colour and movement, a clunky VHS video camera glued to my shoulder which eventually led to a passionate but brief career as a video editor (and probably all this back pain).
When digital photography came along I was gifted a point and shoot and proceeded to point it and shoot snaps of every willing subject. It was then that I discovered I had an eye for the vaguely interesting and this, really, is the essence of good photography - immortalising the interesting.
Now I’m the kind of person who struggles to be good at anything because I’m too impatient and if I can’t be good right away then what’s the damn use in trying. And if you’re one of these people too, I suggest you pick up a camera because cameras today are clever enough to do the hard stuff for you, which you’re not going to get from a painting or an instrument. All you need is an eye for composition and the ability to press a button and hey presto! you can trick your brain into thinking you’re already good at something and then it’s only natural to want to improve.
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The first ever photo I took with a digital camera in 2006.[/caption]
When my dad outgrew his first DSLR it became mine (cue heavenly music) and like many I was content for awhile to use my camera on full automatic mode. Even though some photographers would disagree, I believe that using your camera, whatever it may be, in auto mode is an important step in learning to hone your vision without getting weighed down by the technicality of your camera. Honestly, my non-technical brain screamed in pain every time I made efforts to understand the exposure triangle or depth of field and these concepts rattled around in my brain for years before they eventually clicked and made sense. If I’d had to understand these concepts before I ever picked up a camera than I would have given away this photography lark eons ago.
Most people are content to stay in auto and that’s perfectly fine for documenting personal events and pretty scenes but I started to get REALLY annoyed by blur and poor focus and so I put myself in the hands of the professionals and took a couple of half day beginner photography classes to learn how to control my camera manually and it was then that I became utterly hooked.
If this were a film, it’d be here you’d see the montage – me pouring over every photography book and magazine I could get my hands on, trooping around the backyard shooting everything in sight, pages flying off the calendar as I scoured the Internet and YouTube for anything vaguely photography related, crying over my bank balance when I see how much I’ve spent on photography gear (that point and shoot is a gateway drug – you’ve been warned), ending in me staring at a blank Word document wondering how to put all this passion into words.
I’ve shot it all - weddings, portraits, events, landscapes, bands, wildlife, macro, travel, street - and 95% of my photos have never been seen by another human because I’m too much of a perfectionist to share them.
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But it’s conceptual photography—the art of using models and props and lighting and Photoshop—that truly thrills me because it’s no longer enough for me to merely document; I want to create, and make magic a reality, even if just in photographic form. Each week I hope to get better and wiser and pass on what I’ve learnt to you, so I can give back to the community that’s taught me so much. And, if nothing else, I learn by making mistakes so this could potentially be a very amusing experiment.
And thus, the ‘Exposing Illusions’ blog is born. *cut the red ribbon – cue applause*
Are you ready to peek behind the curtain?
For me every new year is a chance for reinvention so with 2017 on the horizon I have been going through a period of deep self -reflection. 2015 was the year I became an artist and I built a portfolio of 40 pieces that I’m very proud of. 2016 was the year I spent most […]
On Thursday 1 October I exhibited my work for the very first time at RAW Brisbane’s MERGE showcase. After months of planning, buying things for my display and organising prints it was wonderful to finally have everything come together. There was a great response to my work with lots of positive feedback and people spent […]
How often have you looked at a photo and thought, ‘how did they do that?’ Among a sea of selfies and food shots some photographs are so intriguing or beautiful that they demand your attention and make you wonder. But what might be a fleeting interest for some, for me is an obsession. I don’t […]
