Terry Gross's last interview with singer Johnny Cash in 1997 was phenomenal. The man was at the peak of his life, wise, modest without being falsely so, generous to those who've helped him on his rise to success and fame, still the genuinely respectful boy he was growing up with his cotton-farmer dad and mom and a man who still remembered the moment when he had arrived.
After a false start in Michigan when he graduated from high school, Cash went back to Arkansas and joined the army. He got out in 1954 when he was 23 and moved to Memphis. He sold appliances for Home Equipment but couldn't sell anything. "I didn't really want to. All I wanted was the music, and if somebody in the house was playing music when I would come, I would stop and sing with them."
He called Sam Phillips who had produced Elvis Presley's "That's All right" on his Sun Records label. He told Terry it didn't take nerve to call. "I was fully confident that I was going to see Sam Phillips and to record for him." When Phillips told him a flat no, Cash went down to the studio and met the producer as he came in. He told Phillips, "If you'd listen to me, I believe you'll be glad you did." He got his first record. "That was a good lesson for me, you know, to believe in myself." Three months later, Elvis asked him to sing with him at the Overton Park shell in Memphis. "And from that time on, I was on my way, and I knew it, I felt it, and I loved it."
Fresh Air interviews singers, actors, movie directors, and writers, genres of artists that fascinate me. I learn from hearing their stories. I am sure what they tell Gross is not everything that happened. We all edit our stories, delete insignificant, non-dramatic parts and craft a plot just as a good fiction writer does. Our stories how something come about arise from our insights into a stream of experience that has no chapter or paragraph markings. Along the way, some piece jumps at us from the stream and becomes an event. One such event that interests me hugely is the moment when an artist or craftsman believes his or her career took off. It underlines for me that moment when I've become what I'd decided I wanted to be.
It is working. When I decided in late 2007 to learn to shoot professional photographs and videos I set four years as the goal for getting my work up to commercial standards. The goal was arbitrary, based on a piece of otherwise irrelevant fact: when I could earn substantial income again without jeopardizing the source I'd tapped to use until my work began earning meaningfully. Two years later and I feel my decision vindicated seeing what I've done. Starting out I didn't know what I would need to go through. Truly we make the path by walking. From the first model shoot I did with Kaleb in May 2005 to now as I prepare for my 19th shoot is an adventure beyond belief. The struggles day after day are there but they're forgettable for the moments of achievement, when I look at what I am now able to do.
The process involves many phases. To create good photographs I needed to learn how to use a DSL camera, learn exposure settings, lighting, printing, and other outputting media. I needed to learn software for postproduction. And there's more. I found websites for tutorials and to see what professional photographers were creating. I learned about social media and marketing. Just over two years after making that decision, I feel I am on the cusp of fundamental change. I'm not there yet but I feel it's going to happen within the coming year. I know it, I feel it: I'll have a moment as Cash had when he knew he was on his way.
No comments:
Post a Comment