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©Edmonson Photographers

The reason I started in photography is that my father is a photographer and my grandfather, who did sales for photographic equipment, also did photography as a hobby. By 1983 my dad opened his own business, and at that point his father and him started these stock photography trips. My dad submitted my grandfather’s photos for a book that ended up becoming the number one best-selling book in the 1980’s. That got my grandfather pretty excited. So they spent the rest of the time until his death running the photography company together. And that’s kind of what I grew up with, with both of them shooting together.

Originally I had no desire to grow up and be a photographer. But when I got to college, I suddenly realized that this is the lifestyle I’m used to. Being a photographer is unique because you have permission to go places you’ve never been. Every day is different and you work with all these different creative people. So one night, I said to my father, I’ve never expressed an interest in this, and I’m still not sure, but would you support me while I explore photography? And he said, absolutely. It’s a great gift he gave me.

I ended up getting a degree in film, so I could still be different from my father. My pictures can move, while his are still. But that was just out of my youthful need to be different. By the time I was 28, I had gotten to the point where I could work with my father, rather than for my father. Plus, I’ve always been a little envious that my grandfather and him worked together. So when I moved back to Dallas from San Francisco, I ended up saying to my father, let’s do photography together.

What we found works best for us is to divide up our roles and responsibilities. My father, for instance, handles all of our Photoshop retouching and all of our printing. That’s one of his talents. I try to handle our new business relationships, our marketing, our websites, our blog, and those kinds of things. That helps us keep enough energy in our own personal batteries to do a good job for our clients.

©Edmonson Photographers

As far as family-run photography businesses go, working with my father is different from a husband and wife working together, simply because we’re not the same age. Here I have my father, who’s been in business for 30-plus years; he has wisdom from longevity. He’s seen a lot of different things. At the same time, I have a youthfulness and the ability to relate to clients on a different level. For example, when my dad flirts with the bridesmaids, it’s more of a fatherly kind of thing than if I do.

One of the things that I appreciate about my dad is the fact that some people kind of get stuck in doing the same thing. Once they figure out that something that works, that’s becomes their signature and they don’t do anything else. My dad has been really good at reinventing himself, almost like Madonna, throughout the years. Sometimes we play a games with the bride and say, “Guess who took what photos.” Sometimes the wildest ones, the most energetic ones, are ones that my dad took, but the brides would have guessed it’s me. It’s fun because he still has that youthful spirit.

I think in any relationship, the biggest question is, are you still growing as a person? Whether you’re husband and wife, whether you’re brother and sister, whether you’re father and son. We can all learn from each other. You just have to have that open heart and open spirit. Not only do my dad and I work together, we live together, too. It’s just him and me. We are literally around each other 24/7. We’re very blessed by our photography business; it gives us a lot of opportunities to do things together.

Geese at sunrise at Bosque, New Mexico. ©Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

Going back into the mid ’80s when I first started to sell photographs, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. No one was calling me up.  One of the big misconceptions now is that people are calling us up all the time to buy photographs. That’s not how it works in general. And one thing I wrote in my first book, The Art of Bird Photography, is that if you made a list of important things for selling photographs, the quality of your images might be about seventh or eighth. And I can prove it. Go to the newsstand and pick up a magazine that has your subject matter in it and every person is going to say, “I have better pictures than that.” But I’m the only person who would say that, and then follow it up with, “Yeah, and that guy must be working a thousand times harder than me because his pictures are in the magazine and mine are not.”

A Chestnut-breasted Coronet. ©Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART

I’ve seen dozens of great photographers who could not sell a picture. And some folks with mediocre work are famous. The hard-work aspect is super important, as is determination. One of the things that happened early on was when my wife and I were considering leaving teaching and selling bird photographs, people said, you’ll never make enough money, how can you think of that, you have such a great health plan with both of you teaching. Being told that I couldn’t do it, that was one of the best things that ever that happened to me. I am a very determined person; when you tell me that I cannot do something, I am gonna bust a gut to do just that.

I mentioned Bird Watcher’s Digest — I’ll be forever indebted to Mary Beacom Bauers, she was the editor there. I sent her an article and she wrote back saying that the article had been accepted for publication.  The magazine came out six times a year and for two years I would get it and look at the table of contents and my article was not in there. So I wrote a second article and sent that to her. That was accepted for publication and came out in the next issue. And then the original article came out in the issue after that. The first time I met Mary at Cape May, New Jersey, a big birding hotspot, she said “Boy Artie, after I held your article for two years and you sent me a second article, I knew that you were really determined.”

A Great Blue Heron silhouetted against the sun. ©Arthur Morris

One of the things that helped me establish myself was realizing that it’s a lot more efficient to write an article, get paid for the article, and get paid for five or six photographs than it is to beat your head against a wall trying to sell one photograph that might get in someone else’s article. Early on I did a lot of writing for Birder’s World and especially Bird Watcher’s Digest. There was probably a five year period where I only missed one or two issues of BWD. That helped me get my name known.

When I first started, I didn’t know what I was doing. But after a couple years my goal became simply to make pictures that pleased me. I never shot for the market, to give advertisers room to put type in the frame, I just wanted the picture to be pretty and people to go, “Ooh ,that’s pretty good.” When I first started, my only goal was to get the cover of one national magazine. And then I thought I’d go on to another hobby, as I’d done before.  Somehow, within three years, while I was still a fledgling bird photographer, I had the cover of what used to be called The Living Bird Quarterly (now Living Bird).  Instead of that quenching my desire, I said, “That’s pretty cool, let’s do it again.”

This is a question I get a lot from readers. Do I need to move to LA or New York or other big fashion market to have a successful fashion photography career?

In the past I have offered a diplomatic answer because I know the question is coming from a place of apprehension, and I hate to be one of those arrogant asses who throw out an answer that will potentially change someone’s life without being sensitive to their context. But the question came up again in reverse form this week via email: Do I need to stay in Los Angeles to start my career, because I’m really over this city. So it’s time to address the question definitively. The short answer is, yes.

If your goal is put out a shingle and make a nice living as a local fashion photographer, then there are alternatives to moving to a big market. But if you’re looking for myriad opportunities to turn your talent and training into a career, you must immerse yourself in an epicenter of the industry. I say this with conviction because, had I moved back home instead of staying in Los Angeles after I graduated from school, my career would be a shadow of what it became.

Big city big opportunities for you and thousands of your peers
Aside from the obvious factors of logistics, knowing no one, and not knowing the terrain, moving to a city where there is an advertising or fashion/celebrity market is intimidating because you’re not the only one trying to make it. In fact there are a lot of you trying to make it, and you’re all probably pretty good at making pictures. These are your comrades and your competition.

Despite what you’re probably thinking, jumping into a pool with so much good talent is one of the healthiest things you can do for your career. Not only will you be exposed to styles and methods that you’ve never imagined, you will lose sleep trying to sort out how to compete. And that is where the magic lies: in the Darwinian epiphanies where you conjure an idea that’s better than the next guy’s. That’s one kind of creative motivation that can only come from the pressure of friendly competition.

More entry-level job opportunities in your field
Big markets, especially L.A. and New York, have a lot of of entry-level job positions in your field. This is valuable for making a buck, staying abreast of the industry gossip, getting exposed to the names of the industry players, and generally understanding the vibe of the career you’ve chosen. These jobs also carry little expectation of a long-term commitment. As soon as anyone who works for me starts exhibiting flawless performance, I know they’re about to depart for the next level of their life. You should go into these jobs with the same attitude: expecting to leave as soon as you’ve learned all you can, or you’ve saved enough money, or you’ve built your portfolio enough to start showing — whatever the reason, have an exit strategy. But, like I say in my book, never forget where you come from either. If you move past the people you work with, never lord your success over them. Remember you would be nothing without them.

More opportunities to shoot for money
I am forever grateful for the vast headshot market in Los Angeles. During lean times when I was seriously questioning how I was going to pay my bills, I was saved by the actor community. Headshots are not the most glamorous of shooting jobs, but it is a market you can break into fairly quickly and cheaply. All you need is a nice location with good natural light and a camera. Do a good job with one actor and they will recommend you to their friends. Clients usually pay in cash on the day of the shoot and the gig is a short term commitment. Best of all, it doesn’t adversely affect your reputation like shooting an ad campaign for an Alpaca porn DVD. (I’m not admitting anything here.)

Masters and heroes live in the big markets
Large markets tend to attract the heavy weights of the industry. Not only will you probably get to meet one of your heroes, you will interact with all kinds of editors, art directors, and writers who are masters of what they do. You can’t beat this type of exposure. Not only for your career, but for your sensibility as well. I can write volumes of what it’s like on the other side of magazine and agency doors, but you’ll never really feel it until you experience it for yourself.

If you can, transition slowly
When I first moved to L.A. from San Francisco, I was visiting model agencies trying to expand my model testing career on the side while going to school. It certainly made it easier to get my ass kicked in the real world when I could always return to the safety of school. I highly recommend this path, it lessens the shock of the transition. If you are out of school or not going to attend school, the transition to a new city can be tough. But once you get through the first year of emotional tumult, you’ll be acclimated and focused. That’s when the fun begins. Be smart, always keep in mind why you moved, and keep your eyes open — golden opportunities rarely present themselves the way you expect them to.

Floodlights light up the twilight sky on the Coast Guard icebreaker Healy. Photo by Chris Linder, WHOI

It’s 11pm, and the sky has just melted into the electric blue of twilight. I’m covered head-to-toe in fleece but the wind is still sneaking chilly fingers down my back. Stretched out in front of me is 420 feet of US Coast Guard icebreaker, and at my back is the ice-covered water of the Bering Sea. The crew has just turned on the icebreaking floodlights, and the beams stab out into the night like dueling light sabers. All I need now is for the ice to cooperate. Too much sea ice, and the vibration of the ship’s hull crunching through it, will destroy my 6-second exposure. I wait, gloved finger on the cable release and my other hand on a tripod leg, until I feel the vibrations subside. The ship turns, the full moon slips behind a cloud… Click. Mirror up. Click. Shutter open. Thunk. Shutter closed, mirror down.

This first week has taught me that the best light in the Bering Sea happens after the sun goes down. For the first five days, we had nothing but lead-gray overcast skies. I can only do so much with a plain white, no-contrast background. Night to the rescue. As soon as it started to get dark on that first night, the deck lights came on and bathed the scientists and sea ice with beautiful light. Since then I’ve spent as much time as possible shooting the “available darkness” between dusk and dawn.

Speaking of dusk, it’s getting late, the ship is stopped, and instruments are about to go in the water. It’s time to zip up the exposure suit, pull on my waterproof, steel-toed boots and hard hat, and hit the deck with shutter blazing.