I have been hit hard by the post print run depression. That feeling when a piece of works dominated all free time and energy, your full problem-solving skills to navigate the funfair ride of emotions. The work represented everything I believed in at that moment, hitting the mark as best I could. I decided to set it free to the world and it fucked off straight out the door without looking back and that was that.
Sometimes I think I owe my sanity to the book “Art and fear”. Art is about your own journey, it is not to be influenced or made for others. It is not made to be compared and thus has no competition. But damn it, I shared it online, reactions where interesting. With the Alternative Photography Facebook group it did well, I have had stronger responses but imho my older work was cliche. The group has a strong Art bias with some serious heavy hitters. 210 likes with more comments than most posts. Flickr however got 1 like. I am not bitter but next weekend I will be posting that Flickr is total shite. I joke, I think.
The void left is worrying. Usually after printing images new questions emerge, new inspirations. This time they didn’t appear. The feeling that what I set out to achieve had been completed, the chapter closed. I don’t know what to do now, should I arrange more shoots? Should I wait for fresh ideas? I desperately want to push forward, but I don’t have the energy to do it. I feel numb.
I won’t lie, this book was a struggle, I hated it, but I think I needed it. Somehow, I was meant to read it. Years ago, I was going through my “Zen in the art of archery” phase. Eventually all serious photographers will read that, unless you have no soul. I bought this book when I was trying to digest more, but I never got round to reading. Zen greatly influenced my photography until one day I suddenly had an awakening that maybe it was all bollox. You see, I find Zen to be one of the greatest influences to art but I keep thinking that all its principles would be better wrapped up in creative thinking exercises without all the eastern mystical Wu wei.
In that unexplainable way that life unfolds, the Tao of Photography turned out to be primary concerned with “Responding to what you see” rather than trying to enforce your visions and concepts upon it, which was mystically last week’s blog post written before I picked up this book. It seemed to take many words to explain some basic ideas. My memory of it has got tangled up into a big elastic-band ball.
It talks about 2 concepts, trying to photograph things in new ways of seeing or the greater way of changing how you see, think and feel. It is how you respond to the subject of the photograph emotionally, the emotion of the scene and the emotion you feel in synchronicity. It also mentions the concept of seeing things vaguely and leaving them unexplained. It hit a chord and provided some inspiration on where to go next.
Near the end of the book, it got a little Stoic. It talks of a man who almost died and near the end of life suddenly realising the creativity of art was its own reward and not some goal of immortality. I needed that story. I think I have been taking things too seriously.
