Be the "Only", not the best.

There was a recent quote I heard from Kevin Kelly that sparked an interest to me. For those of you that may not be aware, Kevin Kelly is the person that quite literally wrote the book on 1000 true fans.

I’m a pretty firm believer of the concept “1000 true fans”. Although I’m happy that a significant number of people watch my Youtube channel or follow me on instagram, deep down inside I know that it doesn’t really affect me much on a tangible scale. And I’ve been pretty vocal about it as well. I have a hard time finding photography clients, I make a living basically having a separate 9-5, and it’s only a slice of the long, long artistic journey that I am on. (Not a sob story, just sharing the reality of a millennial artist ;))

Which is why I subscribe to the idea of 1000 true fans so much. There are artists out there even without a social media presence making the big bucks with gigantic gallery showings. It’s because a small number of “true fans” follow and support their work.

And… perhaps the Kevin Kelly quote that interested me, which was “Don’t just be the best, be the only” is linked to the 1000 true fans concept. You can be technically great, have a large following, and be well-known, but you can’t beat someone being their own niche.

Artistically, this is where I find myself today. Looking inside myself to figure out my message. How I can be the “only” in my own world. The issue is that this goes against a lot of my ideology around art when I started taking photographs. I had this obsession almost, of being technically, extremely proficient in my craft. This influenced the photographs I took so much over a long period of time, and also my thought process around photography.

Photography after you stop caring, 2023

Over the years though, I learned that it isn’t that hard to mimic the styles of other artists. Be it photographers like Alex Webb, Matt Stuart, or painters like Richter or Soulages, getting to the point of being able to somewhat replicate their styles takes some time but not an eternity.

But that’s not what all this is about. And in fact, that’s not what people want or need. What people are hungry for, and what the market pays for in the long run, are usually innovators- people that have their own thing going.

I don’t regret practicing photography for close to 10 years until I was happy where I was technically. But as Picasso said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”, very similar sentiment to the idea of being the “Only”. I feel like I’ve been trying to unlearn photography- and it’s been a challenge to say the least.

Being the best at something means, there are competitors. There are already people inhabiting that space, or there are people that have done that thing before you, and probably even better.

I may not agree with or like the photography of people like Wolfgang Tillmans, Yoshiyuki Okuyama, or Daido Moriyama. But they are in their own world. And I respect that a lot, a lot.

Time to look into the archives, I guess.

Thanks for reading,