I just returned from a week in New York mixing with photographers, filmmakers, music composers, and other artists. This was on the heels of participating in a filmmaking expo where a core group of us ran around town late into the night after the events of each day. This slowed down the progress on my new projects, but I think spending time with other creative people is essential to growing as an artist.

Influential artists typically come out of creative clusters. Look at the movements in literature surrounding Hemingway and Fitzgerald, or the Russian greats, or the Latin “Magical Realists”, or the Beat Generation. This happens across fields: the British musical invasion, or the New York pop artists, or the collection of friends around Lucas and Spielberg who are now a who’s who of directors in Hollywood. This is one of the reasons geography still matters in the age of the internet and easy communication — being a part of the community is important.

I see a trend in the Photography industry as things get tight and jobs become more competitive to close off from others in the field. I think this is counter-productive, and potentially fatal. The incremental competition from one other person in the vast sea of competition is trivial next to the benefits of having a new ally and an additional resource for feedback, insight, and support.

Furthermore, it makes one’s work more relevant to be part of a greater community. The art world does not merely judge new work on its own merit in a vacuum. New art books and exhibitions and screenings are judged as much by what they add to the current movements in their respective mediums.

And the “secrets” being protected by those with a more reclusive tendency are not secrets at all. Most capable professionals can simply look at a work and know how all the technical, mechanical aspects of the work were achieved. However, the parts that are more magical and more fundamental to how the audience reacts to the work are typically not easily replicable.

So I make an effort to be connected to the greater artistic community — sometimes with people in the same mediums as myself, other times in other artistic fields. I just see this as part of the process.

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