Ms. Merritt's experience is now the norm for someone who wants a name.(posted 8730 days ago)But why do we assume that? I hear you saying all these high falutin' things about fashion, about photography, about communication, about establishing a photographic legacy...meanwhile you still have the dayjob and you go online to dream about being a "photographer"(whatever that means). "Time to either shit or get off the pot" as they say in Southern Missouri.
Today, to get to the top of your field, you have to be a celebrity first.
I would argue that for every flash-in-the-pan success story there are propbably 100 work-a-day photographers who have built careers for themselves by hard work, long hours, professionalism. Where does Merritt go from here? Unless she can come up with another good hook, her career is downhill with every year that she ages --- psuedo intellectual porn is probably a limited market. And I'm not convinced that a few exhibits and a Taschen book make a photographer "successful" --- notorious, maybe - but if you measure success in dollars, being a photographer publishing a book ain't shit compared to being a photographer who can count on regular income to provide photographs for publications or catalogs. Sure, this might open doors for Merritt - but which doors and where do they lead? And do you want to go through those doors?
Your problem is you want to go from amateur to Avedon --- "Today, to get to the top of your field, you have to be a celebrity first." What about all the people who are out there working, building on their own success?
Seriously, you don't need a gimmick --- you need a good portfolio --- you need to be working in your field (fashion photo) and you need to be doing it NOW. In your place, I would get a portfolio together, knock on doors until I got assisting jobs with fashion photographers, do that, continue to work on the portfolio, meet the clients, do the self promotion and then maybe it would be possible that I would realize some success in fashion photo.