Mr. Whiskets writes, “Most artists need to find ways of paying the bills and this usually involves stepping outside of their immediate interests. Unless, of course, they were born into wealth and the day to day search for money is unnecessary. I have the notion that good art doesn’t naturally spring from that environment but I only have to point to Cartier-Bresson or Godard to look foolish making a statement like that. Having money has the positive effect of freeing up time to create but does the lack of day-to-day struggle for one’s existence have an effect on the work as well? I’d like to think so but perhaps this is simply because I belong to the group of people that hang from paycheck to paycheck. As I’ve said before I make my living as a printmaker and my work week generally exists of two days worth of jobs. If I worked full time, I would never be a photographer (let alone spend the time to write about books) but yet I think if I had all the money that I needed then perhaps I wouldn’t need to make photographs because there would be less at stake if I didn’t. That said, I’d probably give it a go, if just for the experiment.”
Source: 5B4 – Photography and Books