The Creative Rut
It has been eight months since I posted anything to Vox. How funny then that the subject that inspires me to write again is the subject I last wrote about; inspiration or the lack of it and faith in your own work.
So, since we last chatted I completed my picture-a-day project for 2007 and started again for 2008. I made a new picture every day for a whole year and then some and I am proud of that. However, I am less proud of some of the individual shots than I am of the achievement of completing what I started. Let's face it, completing what you started is easy if you're stubborn enough but making each individual picture stand on its own is tough.
I was talking with a fellow photographer this weekend; a fellow ex-pat; probably someone who is somewhere about the same place as I think I am in my photographic development; someone I trust; someone who doesn't mince words. He asked me why I'd been contaminating my Flickr stream with so much crap recently. I was a little taken aback at first but then I knew what he was saying was true. I can try an justify what I'm doing by claiming that flickr is my equivalent of a Day Book, a journal of sorts - both the good and the bad - it's not a blog and certainly it's not a portfolio. That holds true to a point.
I am not in the flickr elite. I'm not even on the flickr B-list but I do have a few regulars who comment on my photos and I comment of theirs. It's a community of sorts to support each other through the project 365 death march. I do not use those comments to criticize their work and they, thankfully, return the favor. My wife knows that it is what I don't say in those comments I make that is most telling but I'm just like my friends their - I struggle enough just to make a post a picture most days so I don't want it scored on artistic merit. It's the one time I'm happy with a "nice capture", "good shot" kind of comment. And then I start believing my own press....
The truth is, my friend is right. I'm actually happy with my pictures about 1 day in 10. I know how to make something that will fool a layman most of the time but, if you really know about photography, and you look at my shots you can see I'm faking it. I can make something that looks artistic but that doesn't make it art. So why go on? I have to keep making pictures if I want to call myself a photographer. I have to go on for that 1 day in 10 when I think it's actually worth it. It's hard to make up of inspiration with persistence and hard work but I have to believe that it's worth trying.
I used to have absolute confidence in my own work to the point of arrogance. I miss that sureness but perhaps this self-doubt is something I just have to work through to get to that next, creative place. It is a hard slog but I am too stubborn to give up just because I feel like I'm producing crap. There's only two choices when you're stuck in a rut; bounce out or get entrenched and comfortable. I am working to avoid the latter.
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