An extension of ones own self.

I feel that as a photographer one has to build a legend from oneself. I take the Photographer Terry Richardson as an example of how one should build their personal 'myth'. My work is nowhere as hyper-sexualized like Richardson, but still the situation applies.

So the question is, how does one go about building this 'myth'? What does the 'myth' even encompass? Personally when I close my eyes and see "the successful fashion photographer" I see endless summers on long sandy beaches with naturally beautiful Brasilian women running in and out of the surf while the camera captures their smiles and hair sweeping off into the crashing water of the waves.

Pretty much.

I'm somewhat landlocked as a photographer. I live here in Central Europe so a voyage to the sea requires more than just a small trip. Meanwhile though I can still pursue the 'myth'. I feel like it requires enormous scrap books full of polaroids of pretty girls and parties and famous people. I collect my polaroids. I collect my snapshots. Although I admit I should print even more of them. The personal 'myth' is hard to build because it's something you not only need to 'create' but it's something you also need to believe and thus 'become'.

Of course to ordinary people, this type of self-promotion feel dispicable. But it's ultimatly nessesary. I love the quote by Tommy Hilfinger where he says, "Lots of great designers never make it because they don't understand that being a successfull designer means selling clothes". Or something to that effect.

I say the same thing about photography. It wasn't me who said, "put all your money into self promotion". It's true. To be succesfull you need more than just connetions, you need to be a legend. You must precede yourself. Like movie stars, when people meet you they must already have a deep sense of already knowing you. The negative aspect of this however, is you, as the 'legend' yourself, generally can't remeber hardly anyone. These days I find people walking up to me on the street or in clubs talking intimately with me as though we had just spent a month together on a deserted island, yet for the life of me I can't remeber who they are.

Now granted, this might be a product of simply getting older. Growing up I noted that my mother (love her to death!!!) didn't exactly have the best talent of recollection. Something I suspect I have inherited. Memory seems to take a backseat to general processing of other mental tasks. So, this isn't to say that I'm not just getting forgetfull. But I asked my friend David (a frequent photographer for Elle, Harpars Bazar and others) and he pretty much echoed my own sentiments. As you get older, and become more succesfull you reach a point where you leave a greater impression on other people, than they leave on you. This is partially because you become so adept at speaking and working with people you don't actually know (consider the experince of models who learn to become comfortable nude in the presence of large numbers of people) that eventually you become simply more adept socially than other people you might meet. That means you already have a general idea how to leave a good lasting impression on people, because in this industry, a solid first impression is worth it's weight in gold. Other people though, are not used to social interactions as professional challanges and thus don't enter into conversations with the subconcious goal of influencing or persuading someone. But as a photographer, this is a critical skill. No matter what, you must leave people with powerfull impressions. But others rarelly make such a strong impression back, and as you get older, and continue to meet dozens of new people each day, fewer and fewer new introductions make strong impression.

Ah, well. I have lots more to say about that, but I need to go back to work. This is from a nude work-in-progress. Tentatively titled, -Tar Baby-.