Abandon more art
I’ve been putting off posting more photography for nearly a year now. After a lifetime of avoiding instagram I decided to spin one up for the explicit purpose of creating some sort of forcing function to “finish” more art, insofar as posting that art would be a finish line of sorts.
In the last year I shot over a 1000 frames, but shared almost none. Half or more of those were shot with a 1st gen Fuji X100, a beautiful little camera that I love looking at but hate looking through. The color isn’t right, the parallax error is too severe, I need to spend more time in post, and on and on. There’s always reasons to delay though, and most of the ‘camera’ excuses are just that.
Eventually I realized most of those were just stand-ins for the real thing: some fear of putting work out there again, especially recent work. Yes I want to make art for myself first and foremost, but I also want to share it. In lucky moments, maybe make someone else feel something when they look at it. What I felt when I took it, what the energy was on that day, in that place, around those people. Sharing work requires some acceptance that I am more likely than not to fall short in that aim.
Instead I get hung up on being discontent with past decisions. That frustration in turn ends up getting in the way of appreciating the beauty right in front of me, and then I end up shooting far less (“I’ll just have to faff around in post to get things right! Why bother!). Perhaps this is why the old quote is that art is abandoned not finish.
In any case, something shifted this past weekend. Things felt different. I'm not exactly sure why, but, I didn’t want to be stuck in that old space anymore. We can always just make a different choice, sometimes it really is that easy. It felt as good a time as any to make that start. And so, because of that shift, when my dad told me he needed new headshots for an essay he’s having published, I grabbed my camera instead of ignoring the opportunity.
And none of these are those portraits! (I’ll post it tomorrow, maybe). I wanted to start instead by exhuming (exorcising?) the past.
These photos are all little windows into duos, pairs, partners.
Two friends interrupted by their stumbling on a third.
A couple, attention split, arriving to meet friends in a park.
Father and daughter catching me catch them on their way through town—another couple looking past with curious apprehension.
Two friends deciding on the next location sitting by Landwehr Canal or the Spree.
A son and his elderly father coming in from the banks of the Havel or Templiner.
A girl and her bike in contrast to a boy and his, neither aware of the small humor their juxtaposition provided for a brief moment.
Every photo was taken in or near Berlin on the Fuji X100. Of the 100+ from a week in Berlin, I like only these 6 enough to share. Still, I have my nits with each of them, not the least of which is a fog that buggered pretty much every frame except the few here where it reads like a pleasant vignette.
One of my favorite things about taking photos is that your field of view is necessarily limited, and as such, focused. Lines, light, figures, motion, the world distilled to a familiar box the fills your vision. I will never be that person that shoots from a LCD screen. Art has the chance to envelope the viewer, and that potential feels easier to realize if I start out enveloping myself.
Unfortunately instagram doesn’t do much to carry that intent. It only gets you so far as a gallery wall. Viewers scroll and flip past, I have no idea if they see the color, light, saturation, or even basic framing as intended.
Time for letting go of that. Shikata ga nai.