Sometimes I like to just walk the streets and not look for photos. I suppose it’s an exercise to see if I can not make photos. I have tried this many times and I fail almost all the time. Some may think it’s a good failure but I on the other hand, think it’s important to pass this test. I don’t like to get complacent with my surroundings etc. So, by not making photos…I am passing some trigger mechanisms and just letting them be.
Could I be just clicking photos because I am there and the camera is at the ready? Is it possible that I am taking things for granted, like my wife says I do with her? Not a real pretty thought I tell ya. At what point do I say about my photos, “I like this, it matters to me”? How easy is it to just make photos just because I can? At what level do I have to make a photo to be satisfied? Can I just be happy being an old shooter and not be thrown off because I feel that some works are beneath my standards I set for myself?
I know that youse do not share this problem and that’s why i ask these questions for you to ponder.
If I think an image in my mind at the time I see some stimulus and I compose and click the shutter….is it justifiable to the state of my craft?
Here’s what I think. I think it’s ok and important to just make photos because you are in love with the entire process. I think that the standards we set for ourselves are beneath what they should really be. It’s easier to succeed and harder to fail with a lower standard. I think that I am my own worst enemy to my life and my work.
It’s ok to slack off once in a while. It’s not ok to not know your slacking off. If you are aware of your work, and work in the here and now…it’s ok to drift for a spell as long as you know your drifting and more importantly….you know where to get back to.
Have a good day………
I might have got this wrong, but weren’t you saying elsewhere that (your) intent is not necessarily at a conscious level? So, I could answer that (your) intent is the only granted thing. And anyway you’re an excellent editor, able to determine later if you’ve slacked off or not; so, that kind of consciousness is not under discussion… You never publish stuff beneath your standard (or I refuse to be the judge…).
Couldn’t it be, on the other end, that leaving open opportunities may just unpredictably show different/unknown sides of your very intent?
Alessandro, ya know….it’s good to have friends to point things out and clear the cobwebs. Sometimes after a session with my shrink at the VA, it takes a shooter to get me back on track. Thanks my friend……don
It’s ok to slack off, or just take pictures to take pictures. Shooters soot, runners run, bakers bake. How else would you know when you when you hit your mark? As a mentor of mine once said, “Sometimes you’re on the express train. Sometimes you’re on the local.” Whether it’s conscious or not, we’re doing something visual that’s meant to be seen. Whether by others or just for ourselves. Sometimes we’re aware of where we are, sometimes we’re not. Dream, drift. Sooner or later, hopefully you’ll come back.
Thanks Keith. I’m not lost, dazed, confused at all. Sometimes I like to slack off to catch a breath but I know I’m doing so. The past year it comes and goes more often due to working on the Inspired Eye. It take a lot of time and energy and competes with my photography.
Thanks …..don
Here is a great quote for you Don, by Saul Leiter, “If I’d only known which [photographs] would be very good and liked, I wouldn’t have had to do all the thousands of others.”
Thanks Keith….more food for thought….