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Visionmongers

First of all i’m a bit later than I would have liked with this review but for some reason the UK tends to be one of the last places to get anything. Released around the world some time in early November, it was mid-january before Visionmongers started hitting the bookstores in the UK. My copy got delivered a couple of weeks ago and much as there was the temptation to rush straight through it, having read the previous book Within The Frame I decided to take more time with this one.

In the interests of integrity I should mention I love Davids work both with the camera and without and his blog has been a regular read of mine for many a moon. Having said that, i’m always a bit reluctant to buy into anything these days that promises to give you answers or solutions to problems. For the most part that comes from an unhealthy natural cynicism, but when you’ve rummaged through countless bookstores, come home loaded down with magazines and books telling you how, for example, to “Improve Your Landscape Photography!” only to see another article telling you to ‘go out and buy a graduated filter’, you start to realise why they put these things in bags … so you can’t read them first and find out the mystical advice is no more than common sense. Finding real solid advice ain’t easy!

That in mind, I opened the book with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation. As a lover of books I have to say I would have preferred a hardback copy. A book is an emotional experience as much as a photograph is. A paperback feels disposable, something to flick through when you have the time. A good hardback just sounds and feels a class above. It gets you involved in the content more. Makes you take your time and consider what’s in front of you. Aesthetics apart and David begins the book by explaining why he chose the title and what a Visionmonger is. You can read his own explanation here but in essence my understanding is that a Visionmonger is someone trading on his vision. If i’m right in that then I think David is selling himself short. Vision is most surely a part of his work but whilst we’re creating words here, I think ‘Honestymonger’ would be more accurate. It’s hard to be pedantic about words you’re unlikely to find in a dictionary but it’s the one constant I find running through all his work. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an image or a sentence, each come with an honesty that is both refreshing and disarmingly infectious.

It’s an important point to make because it’s through that honesty that you know the words you are reading and are about to read can be listened to. There’s a belief there, but there’s no ego. Right from the start you’re told that making a living in photography is hard and that there are no formulas. If you’re looking for an easy guide and a step by step then you’re out of luck. What you get instead, are experience and wisdom put onto a page in such a way as to trigger your own answers to the questions you have.

Throughout the book David tells you his story, offers you guidance & hard-earned wisdom but, in case that isn’t enough (and it is) you also get the combined wisdom of other photographers who’ve been there, done it, and are still doing it whilst trying to move ever further forward. It’s an invaluable insight which makes you look at yourself, your work, and how you market yourself from the outside in. I don’t want to spoil the book and give away the contents so instead i’ll try and give you an example of my own that relates to one of the things mentioned: I was speaking to a friend a while back. She told me how beautiful some of my latest images were and how I had become a creative ‘God of Beauty’! Such comments filled my heart with joy and so, I did what comes naturally … “Yeah?” I replied, “but I really don’t think I nailed that one quite right and if I had the chance to take this one again then perhaps i’d have gone for a different aperture and maybe even …..”. Now that’s all well and good when talking to a close friend (although she did berate me for it …again!) but when you’re putting yourself out there on a competitive market it’s just not the right way to go! Nobody, least of all David is going to say you should lie about things, but when you have a client who comes to you because they like what they see, telling them you think it sucks is not going to help you get the gig. If you were buying a car and the salesman/woman started telling you the brakes could be better and it would be nicer if the steering wheel didn’t block your vision so much, you’d probably walk out of the showroom. A potential client who liked your work will probably do the same and someone else will get the gig.

Of course few people make the mistake of telling potential clients that their work isn’t good enough, do they? Well yes, many do. It’s not just your spoken words that send a message to your clients, other less obvious things do as well and that’s where David’s book comes in. Again, i’m not going to tell you the plot but suffice to say he helps you to see the pitfalls of both under- and over-promoting yourself in a way that is the kind of pure common sense you normally only realise after the fact.

If Visionmongers was just about the mistakes David and other professionals have made and the ways to avoid them, then it would be a valuable book to have on your shelf. Where I think it goes beyond that is that it also triggers ideas for new and different ways of walking your own path. As David points out at the start, there are no formulas, no path that’s the same for everyone, and so it doesn’t set out to say “do things this way and you’ll be succesful!”. Instead, it comes across more like a friend at your side saying “Ok, that’s fine, but have you considered all the alternatives and the implications as well?”.

I’m going to happily go out on a limb here and say this is a book no photographer should be without. There are very few of those around and I say it because a) I believe it, but b) because there is something in there for everyone, no matter at what stage of your career you’re at. I mentioned in a post at the end of last week that “there’s a market for anything!”. Taken on its own that’s a pretty strong statement to make. What I meant by it was that if you believe in what you do then you shouldn’t let anyone tell you different, you should follow your heart and not go looking for the easy money. Well there was a caveat to that, and basically what that caveat was, is that if your market is so niche that it doesn’t even show up on the radar, you’re going to need to be pretty sharp on your marketing skills if you want to make a living from it. There’s a market for anything, but you have to know where it is, understand it, and understand how you can fit into it, succesfully. No book can give you all or even any of the answers and thankfully this one doesn’t try to. What it does do though, is help you find the answers yourself.

You honestly can’t ask for more than that. This is a book you’ll return to a thousand times over and each time come away with another new idea for how you can move your business forward. Still have doubts? Ok, head over to the publishers Peachpit and see some samples from the book. Myself? I’m going to head off to bed with a nice cup of tea and start reading it again!