Above, the title of Fred Lebow’s memoir, “Anything for a T-shirt” he is one of the co-founders of the New York City Marathon. Below, 12 that I have gathered.
So I can twist this into being about photography if you follow me…
This year is the 40th running of the NYC marathon and it will be the largest field ever, with over 40,000 runners. What started 40 years ago with 127 entrants has morphed into a World Wide event that brings the city to a standstill for one day. Running is more popular than ever, in particular the growth of the Half-Marathon distance has been huge in the last few years. And with that, has come a measure of regret for those who enjoyed its less popular days. It has never been a big money sport, but increasingly some would argue, the purity of the sport is being lost. This was an opinion I ran across reading Christopher McDougalls book “Born to Run” about “the greatest race the world has never seen.” Particularly in the venue of ultra-marathoning, the athletes do it for the love of running since the awards are non-existent and the pain so great in running 50+miles. Why else could you do it?
Over about the same time frame photography has evolved from something that no one considered worth selling in a fine art gallery to being ubiquitous on the one hand, and in a few cases, valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars on the other. Consider that dichotomy. And along the way it has lost some of it’s innocence, I think there is no denying that. These are not the days of holing up in the Strand to read a copy of Weston’s Daybooks. Not that you can’t do that. But you will be passed by in short order by the latest Twitter update that Marcus and Idrani are “back from insolvency” or some other ridiculous thing.
What are we to make of this kind of inevitable change? Do all movements that get massively popular and more accessible become shadows of their former unpopular and scrawny selves? Is the experience of the sport or art cheapened both for the participants and the observers when the barriers to entry are lowered? Many would argue that the emergence (interesting word choice) of the popularity of the half-marathon distance has taken something away from the pinnacle of “full” marathon achievement. Also the inclusion of so many charity runners who will probably walk a good portion of the marathon is another erosion of what it means to some to complete “the” marathon (no full qualifier required).
Well by my own logic then I should not be in the New York City Marathon. And by my own deduction photography is dead. OH AUGUST HOW I LOVE THEE! Perhaps I can reorient a bit. It’s about the money and the attention. Now I am on solid ground. The explosion of the half marathon distance is a real money maker for those race organizers. I believe only Boston and NY have no concurrent half-marathon distance, while many or most of the big city marathons do, and inevitably all small city marathons do. It is just too easy to take the entrance fee when you are gonna be out there already. I am mixed on it. I do remember distinctly watching all the half-er’s finish in Long Branch, it was emotional for me because I was still proud of them for getting to the finish line. 13.1 is still 13.1. And when there are 6000 halfers and only 2000 marathoners, the crowd cheering for the halfers is bigger and less bored on their feet! So rounding the next turn I remarked to those around me, “glad we have all this room now to run” but no one seemed happy to hear it. We had it to do all over again.
Like those halfers, emerging photographers are paving a bright shining path for those offering contests, consulting, portfolio reviews, websites, tutorials, branding, you name it. Aging photographers are looking at their 401k’s and thinking, like that Masked Magician, if I can show you how to saw a pretty girl in half, or at least light her with a beauty dish hanging off a speedlight or two, I might sail off in the Good-Ship Retirement unscathed. Increasingly the long tail starts to wag the dog as the industry turns inwards to capitalize on its young. It is not a good sign when a business becomes about itself. Think Mary Kay.
It is difficult to determine what the factors are that contribute to these sudden swells of popularity. In running it might be a simple demographic shift where a large number of people suddenly reach an age where they no longer feel invincible. So heath issues come to the fore. Others have speculated that running in essence is the flight response made manifest, and so in times of hardship it kicks in. The first mass wave of jogging (that’s yogging with a soft “j”) popularity was in the 70′s, as we were slouching towards Reagan.
In photography as I have said, the combination of the consumer credit bubble, mass consumption driving digital technology downwards in price, and the internet bubble itself (which was fueled by the previous capital bubble boom-bust) created the perfect storm of cheap digital cameras and an internet to share the pictures. We are all photographers, we are all Kenyans. Overnight it seems.
I think it is unfortunate for the new crop of photographers to have to suffer the label “emerging” and the intensity of attention and expectation that this label generates. Part of it is obviously the velocity of information speed on the internet and our corresponding attention deficit. The pressure to produce attention grabbing work or work that garners grants and awards, to produce “books” and completed projects is overwhelming. In the history of photography there are many many late bloomers, a mass of undiscovered talent. But what does that mean, is that tragic? Discovery is only the first step in a career. There will always be a surfeit of work produced, but it is hard to tell if our motivation to find it and blog (and then probably forget it) is because the tools enable this, or that the tools create a demand for something new every facebook status update? And is it fair to our youngest and least experienced practitioners to focus on them this extraordinary amount of attention and energy? Is our concern the promotion of new work or the exploitation of new workers? When we lower the bar to access what does it do to the field as a whole?
It is clear our world is brimming with information but so lacking in direct experience, which by nature simply requires time on the planet. Rubber on the Road. The Trials of Miles. Fogged film holders. Sheet film on the bathroom floor. The marathon was created initially as an obstacle for the human body to transcend that few considered healthy or possible. But to experience that transformation you need to commit to the whole thing. Now, we have this intermediate goalpost, the “half”, which before was only an early milepost in training for the “full” distance. But half is a misnomer. It is only a mathematical half. It is not a factor of two for the body. When we make things more accessible do we alter the potential gift in return?
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I got excited today signing up for all the fall runs that are coming, Grete’s Great Gallop, the Queen’s and Staten Island half’s, (maybe we should just call them 13.1 k’s?) the Joe Kleinerman 10k, some winter runs hopefully in the snow of Central Park. My experience of renewal in running means that the pure experience of photography is always available no matter how many photographers you see “crossing the finish line” next to you. And I realize that to a lot of running veterans, I am part of their problem! But choose how you experience any trial in life. And getting to the finish line is not really why we run. We run to run, we shoot to shoot. Like Fred was saying, “all for the t-shirt”, he’d show up for nothing really. Just to do it. I think photographers might want to accept less now in return for more later. We need more t-shirts! Bet you never thought you’d hear me argue for less reward in photography!