I'm a fraud, and a liar, and a phoney.
In my sidebar "about me", it claims I'm an artist. I've decided recently that I should face that this really isn't true. When is the last time I actually created anything? It's been almost a year since I painted anything -- my one and only picture, and I've been feeling disillusioned with photography.
I describe myself as a photographer, and I even tried to sell my pictures on canvas, but that idea never really got off the ground -- simply because my work was no more remarkable or special or interesting than anyone else's -- and it was less so than a lot of others.
I have mixed feelings about digital photography. I like the ability to instantly see the image, and it's hardly like I'm some kind of analogue purist, since I don't even know how to change a film, but it sometimes feels like with digital cameras everyone fancies themselves as an artist. I feel frustrated that everywhere we can go has already been seen, and now extensively photographed and uploaded to Flickr within hours.
What I used to feel distinguished my work was what I did with pictures -- I like to climb into places or seek out unusual angles, and then digitally manipulate images. Now everything just looks so immediately and unmistakeably Photoshop.
The tag line here attempts to pin down why I blog -- to avoid being that tree falling in a forest -- but sometimes it feels like reality is only what we can record. If you go to a concert, people are clambering over each other to get video and pictures, I know I've been so absorbed sometimes trying to get just the right looking picture that I've realised I was missing the whole reason I was there -- for the music. If a singer comes off the stage to meet the crowd, they must find it difficult to see the people for the forest of cameraphones. Is something only real if you can record it?
I was struck after the G20 protests when you saw photos or images of scenes like the alleged police brutality or the rioters storming the RBS building that in the background there are great swathes of people with their cameras.
Maybe I'm just jealous, and feel like I'm not good enough. I feel like I've stagnated and I can't reasonably call myself an artist any more, even though many would argue I had no right to call myself one to begin with.
I want to upgrade digital cameras, I want to learn to process and develop films and I want to feel like I'm creating again. I hate feeling average and I don't know how to find my way back.
I know how you feel. I feel like that somedays about writing - I haven't had something published for a good six months, and my novel just gathers dust on that hard drive of mine! I wonder what right I have to call myself a writer at all sometimes, as there seem to be, as you say, so many people out there doing so much more than what I am, and whenever I think I've come up with a brilliant idea, lo and behold, someone else has got there before me.
ReplyDeleteI too hate feeling average. There really is something to be said for pushing kids too much at school - they get so used to getting A's and being on top of the game, but get out into the real world, particularly the world of arts, and find that things aren't as simple, or they aren't as special as they were led to believe.
Not that I'm saying you're any of those things of course! :P But I'm completely sympathetic to how you feel.
The only thing I can suggest is what I try to do each and every day - keep going. If this is what you want to do, and you wouldn't be you without it, then you must do it. Do it for you. And try to remember why you enjoyed art and photography so much in the first place. Capture that enthusiasm again. Create because you want to create, not because it's what you think you should do, or because you're worried if you don't you won't be "cool and interesting"!
I think your trip coming up will inspire you.
Read this too:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2009/05/19/creativity/index.html
Also, remember you have all the time in the world. There is no time limit to being creative. Just enjoy, and know that what is meant for you won't go past you.