Creative Energy

This week, on a very special episode of Art + Math…

If you’re an assignment photographer, there’s no better time than when you’re so busy that the phone never seems to stop ringing, one opportunity flowing seamlessly into the next. I was fortunate to be busy like this for a couple of post-lockdown years, but this spring I have noticed somewhat of a slowdown. As a corporate photographer, I think it’s possible I might be a leading indicator of how things are going in the broader economy. If you’re wondering, I’d say I’m seeing the beginnings of a hiring slowdown, as well as a reigning in of marketing budgets. Nothing catastrophic so far, but notable nonetheless. 

That said, I was talking to a photographer friend the other day who is busier than ever. He works in a very specific niche that is tied closely to the spending habits of the ultra-wealthy. Don’t worry everybody, they’re still doing fine. The rich are in fact getting richer, while the have-nots have less than ever.¹

So while my friend is busy and I’m in a slowdown, I got to thinking. Does this slowdown give me more time to be creative and work on the things I never have time for? You’d think so. But, at least for me, it doesn’t work that way. My creative energy ebbs and flows on a weekly basis. And it turns out, when I’m busy with assignments my creative juices get to flowing and it’s easier to carry that energy over into my personal work to be creative for myself. But when it’s slow… Well, let’s just say I’m good at wallowing in self pity.

Creative energy is funny. I always assumed it to be a sort of abstract thing. But when I reached middle age I discovered the “energy” part is literal. It takes energy to make things, and it gets harder when you’re tired. So sometimes you just lay around eating bon bons and watching your stories. 

While this newsletter is just a newsletter to those of you on the other side of this screen, to me it’s my primary creative outlet. I enjoy writing, it’s so simple and pure, and I find it immensely fulfilling. It’s the first thing in a long time I’ve done for love rather than money. Sad but true.

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I don’t generally like to discuss how the sausage gets made here at Art + Math HQ, but I do think it’s worth noting that we recently blew right past the one-year anniversary of this publication. There was little fanfare, even though I’d imagined I would celebrate the milestone with a big fancy commemorative limited edition issue printed on thick paper with a holographic cover. You know, something subtly tasteful. And yet, somehow, it slipped by. Another casualty of the slowdown in work and creative energy. Both of which are, let’s hope, short lived. 

So now, here. Consider this that. Welcome to the special edition commemorative 13-month-anniversary edition of Art + Math. Shall we take a moment to look back in hopes of gaining perspective on how we might move forward?

I set out on this escapade on May 1, 2023 with a post about the end of magazines and the beginning of my venture into this brave new world of self publishing. Since then I’ve been continually reminded that I ain’t the only one, and not only did my magazines die, most of the media is circling the drain too.² We’re reading every week about another publication, another publisher, another thoughtful, well-executed, anti-content type of content disappearing from this brave new world. In a world where the New York Times has pivoted to a gaming platform with a widely read newsletter, why did I think publishing was a good venture? Anyway, that first issue represented a theme that would continue to play out over the following year: our media landscape is in a total state of upheaval. And that has a massive impact on anyone who wants to be creative for a living. When I started, I just thought I was gonna write about photography. 

I’ve written a lot about AI. Much more than I ever expected to, if I’m honest. I’ve interviewed a photographer or two, and done some historical research as well. And, especially lately, I’ve been thinking and writing about creativity quite a bit. There’s not much I don’t see as fair game, and I will admit to having the primary goal of not just publishing content for the sake of publishing content. There’s plenty of that noise out there, and I don’t want to add to it. (Want me to do a camera review? Here you go: I like mine.) I’m enjoying the freedom of exploring the peculiar topics that interest me, and I hope you’re finding it a refreshing change too. Really, I’m trying to follow the same advice I’ve heard and shared for years: the only thing you can be is unabashedly yourself. You do you, and an audience—maybe even just a small one—will find you. These are your people. 

I have published 45 pieces, including this one. A couple of them, which were published on the website but not blasted out via email, are reruns rescued from the bowels of the disappeared magazines for which they were originally written. (I do hope, going forward, to more frequently pepper these pages with some of my favorites old pieces. I did a TON of interviews with world class photographers for Outdoor Photographer and Digital Photo Pro magazines for more than 20 years. When those books were shut, all that work disappeared from the internet, making it much harder to live on.)

The post that received the most attention—which I still find baffling the outrage it provoked (see the comments)—was about iconic photographer Annie Leibovitz. 

The piece that I am perhaps most proud of was an exploration of a landmark copyright case and putting it in context. Photographers’ work is simply treated differently in copyright law, at a fundamental level, than other works of art. 

The post that surprised me the most with its positive response was the one about studios, and in particular Jay Maisel’s bank. I have learned, there are pieces you put your blood sweat and tears into and they are met with a shrug and a whimper. Then there are pieces you think are going to get you laughed out of inboxes everywhere, and people are calling you up to tell you how much they enjoyed it. 

This last point actually was a lesson I’ve learned this year, and it’s been kind of profound. Don’t overthink it. Don’t be a perfectionist. Just do it. The only way to make something great is to make a bunch of crap that isn’t great beforehand. You can’t know what is going to be great until after the fact, and frankly it isn’t for you to decide. So just do the work and leave the judgment to everybody else. 

In this year’s 45 pieces were a grand total of 67,502 words. (Okay, I didn’t count them individually. I averaged, lowballed, and multiplied, then added two. So it’s about this many words; if anything it’s more.) Regardless, it’s a lot of words. But they were the freeing words of someone writing not for an editor or an advertiser, but for himself. There’s something exciting, maybe even liberating, about that. One of the (few) upsides of this brave new world of the creator economy. 

Also, all those words, those 317,259 characters, were written to the soothing sounds of bebop jazz. If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll check out the Art + Math Jazz Primer. At this very moment I’m listening to Art Blakey’s “Rhythm-A-Ning.” Every time you listen, I earn a quarter.³

These days we’re getting more than a thousand views each month, which I’ll take—especially given that I aim to publish only three pieces per month. I’ve averaged a post every 8.93 days, which is actually ahead of what I’d hoped.⁴

I’ve learned this last year that it really helps to feel like somebody, even a small (read: elite, erudite, thoughtful) group is interested in what you’ve got to say. The open rate on my newsletters is pretty high—better, I think, than when I was getting paid nearly a buck a word in the good ol’ days. In this world where everything is measured and quantified and optimized, I’m doing it the old fashioned way: I’m thinking about what interests me, writing about it, and hoping it interests you too. Wild. 

I have modest aspirations, for sure. But, at least for now, that’s enough. 

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That reminds me. Art + Math is free, and there are no paywalled posts.⁵ But I do really appreciate the patrons among you who keep me from feeling like I’m wasting my time. I assure you, not just here but everywhere out there that you support someone trying to do anything without corporate support, every little bit helps. Every dollar, sure, but also every like and subscribe. I get it now. The reason youtubers are always pleading for you to smash that like and subscribe is because the algorithm is paying attention, and those metrics really matter if you’d like your stuff to be seen by a wider audience. Or if you wanna make a buck.

I said that I’m doing this for love, not for money. And that’s true. But it’s out of necessity. Technically, I’d rather be doing it for both. 

When I said 28 words ago that you might wanna make a buck, I meant that literally. Doing this, you can make a buck. One buck. Not much more. 

I received a Substack payout today of $3.97. I get these every few days, or sometimes every couple of weeks. And sometimes they’re even into the double digits. In the course of this publication’s 1.1 years in business, all told, Art + Math has earned a whopping $—. 

Oh, what’s that? You don’t see the dollar amount? Ah, well, you see… that’s for paying customers. If you’re one, send me a note and I’ll tell you the number. That way you too can see how easy it is to get rich publishing in the 21st century. 

Welcome to my first sales pitch. Will it be my last? Stay tuned…

1. I’m no economist, but this sort of thing doesn’t seem sustainable.

2. I heard Larry David interviewed yesterday. “I’m not on social media,” he said. “I’ve never been on social media. If I’m gonna read writing, I’d like it to be a professional writer. Let’s read a professional.” It struck me how anachronistic this idea has become. 

3. Just kidding. Even the musicians don’t earn that.

4. You may have noticed the seemingly haphazard publishing schedule. I assure you there’s a method to my madness, and more than a little bit of experimentation going on. But rest assured my guiding principle has been to buck the conventional wisdom of “publish or perish.” I am not a content factory. I’m aiming for “good,” not “frequent.”

5. Yet. 🤣