Sometimes a Picture is Just a Picture

Being self employed means it’s very easy to get caught up in self promotion, marketing efforts, blog posts and the like. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and I also belong to a handful of photo industry groups and forums. With all that info flying around at the touch of an iPhone, it’s sometimes difficult to put it down and just take pictures. Any pictures. Pictures on the street, pictures in the woods, my backyard, whatever. Seeing things through the frame of a camera – all things – is like therapy to me.

Last week I spent several days in the Yosemite area. We got up 9000′ + on a few hikes and saw some truly breath-taking scenery. Bears, deer, marmot, jaw-droppingly beautiful summits and valleys. Did I snap a lot of photos? Heck yeah. Will they make it into my portfolio? Nope. Sometimes a picture is just a picture. Like the shot above taken at Dog Lake near Tuolumne Meadows. It’s a pristine alpine lake located at 9,200′ that’s only accessible about 3 months a year. That in itself is pretty special. And to me, that is what this photo represents, not commercial value or self promotion.

Marketing and self-promotion are necessary evils in this business but sacrificing the very thing you’re promoting by, well, promoting it 24/7 is not good math.

~ by Gary Allard on July 24, 2009.