I've been trying to gain a picture of what devoting more time to photography so that it becomes more central in my life would mean. What change of lifestyle is required to achieve this? What needs to shift? What needs to be put into place? What sort of things are involved? How does one establish a presence as an art photographer after the digital turn?

The core answer is that the first step needs to be one ion which paid work ispushed into the background so that photography becomes the centre of one's life. That effectively means a reduced income and a far more simplified lifestyle. And that means a retirement from paid work, and it is this shift that gives the time that is needed to do photography.

One example of this approach is Phil Bebbington who runs a photoblog and is known as terrorkittten on Flickr. Phil is retired and works part time doing this and that to supplement his income.

His hometown is Bath, England, and he spends a large amount of his time photographing on Crete. I particularly admire Cretan interiors work, shot with a Hasselblad SWC. This has a fixed 38mm Zeiss Biogon lens, and is a camera designed 50 years ago.

So there you have it. In order to gain the time to develop photography I need to cut back on paid work and accept living a life on a low income. What next? Produce a body of work, and then establish a big presence on the internet as a photographer.

Big steps