Summer is my worst season. I usually can't produce work in the summer. At least, nothing substantial. Years prior, I would be unable to write, unable to think about things at all during summertime. I would be able to produce work in the fall, in the winter and in sprintime, but come summer, dry season hits.
This year, I felt determined to go past that. To go past the lethargy, the lack of creativity or inspiration. My way of doing it: working more. Force myself to produce more work, to try and think differently, to take more pictures, to carry my camera with me even more than I did before. In that effect, I started taking pictures of little daily things towards the beginning of the summer. I created a set on Flickr with that work that I called "Slices: The Ongoing Project". It was about cataloguing daily happenings, but daily happenings that were outside of my normal, regular context.
Then, I went on to make a series of diptychs with pictures I had taken. Just to try new ideas, to try and force meanings, try out new aesthetics. Always in order to work around the lethargy and lack of creativity that hits every single time summer comes.
This research culminated in three photos, a series titled Crude Imaging. Three pictures of me, half-naked, taken with a slightly overexposing flash burst, then processed to make them unpleasant to view. Why? To try and force myself out of the realm of the beautiful.
In doing that, I started understanding things about my need for photography. About why it has become so primordial to me to take pictures. About why it is that I want photography to be my career, my life. Not the only thing in my life, but my main creative outlet.
I will write more on that topic later, because I'm currently sitting in an internet cafe, somewhere in Old Quebec and I am not totally sure when my (computer) time will run out.
What's important for me to specify though is this: No matter what happens, I'm in the right place. I have something to produce in the photographic realm. I am beginning school in less than a week and then will begin a three year journey that will help me comprehend all that it means. But I know it's right.
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1 comment:
Haha! Lucky! I have to wait till September to start my photographic training.
I see now where you were going. Have you ever studied John Cage's reason for creating the piece 4'33". His main goal was to promote that artistic pieces are only 'beautiful' or 'pleasing' if one pays attention to them. In this piece, there are four minutes and thirty three seconds of 'silence', but in actuality, there is no such thing as silence, Cage tries to show. Silence is an illusion, for the music actually occuring in the piece is the people chattering amongst themselves, the leaves rustling outside, etc. Therefore, everything is music.
Still though, this doesn't mean we should not lose sight of what is 'beautiful' to us, even if we cannot rationalize it.
Just my two cents.
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