Lifelong photographer Sue Nicol, in her sixth decade, recently staged her first solo exhibition.
She tells Robert Keeley how she turned a lifetime passion into a full-time career.
Sue Nicol was advised that her first photography exhibition might not sell one image – which isn’t uncommon. Despite the growing awareness of photography as an art form worth buying, shooters new to the art world don’t always get started with a bang.
So, when she finally tallied up the number of the images she’d sold from her Photonet gallery exhibition in Melbourne and found she’d attracted buyers for 20, she was pleasantly surprised.
It meant she would ultimately cover her costs, and that the decision of the 67-year-old photographer to turn her craft into a full time occupation had been vindicated – or at least it’s a promising beginning!
Nicol has spent a lifetime taking photographs, and at various times she has used them in her working life, but after raising three children and running through the vagaries of various forms of employment, she finally decided several years ago to devote all her energies to creating images. And after that momentous decision, last year she decided to stage an exhibition of her best work.
The outcome was better than she could have hoped for, and now she’s ‘full steam ahead’ pursuing her passion as a career.
This story was first published in the Australian Photography + Digital January 2013 issue.
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