I'm not sure exactly what it is I want from making art anymore. Finding what I want often feels like an elimination process. The checking out and discovering: and then the realization that what I thought it was I wanted isn't what I want after all.
What I worried would happen did happen and it wasn't any self-fulfilling prophecies, at least this time, (wink). The inevitable changing of how I went through the world with my cameras after taking classes to become a more skilled photographer. Although the changes are not in the way I'd suspected, (also inevitable I suppose), because what ever is what we imagine/dream/scheme something to be?
I've tried. I like formulas and there is one to be found in the classes and workshops I've attended. It's not so much that I won't shoot with a pre-determined story or narrative, it's knowing that that style of making work is not my own.
The work I've made from that process, (from a pre-determined vantage point), has been incredibly slow moving and feels forced. In full transparency, I'm not sure it will ever amount to much. I have no idea where it's going and for now that work, or at least the statement of what the work is about, is shelved.
I can't seem to get away from all of these feelings clouding my thoughts. I heard a much respected reviewer say that she has a hard time telling people criticism, even when she doesn't much care for the work, and that hit me hard. How can I value her opinion and direction because now I will always wonder if she's just blowing smoke up my ass like the rest of them.
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