Poetic Collaboration - Day 2

This 10-day rush is getting me back to a more familiar way of making photographs, namely as an accompaniment to daily life. That’s how I used to shoot, taking my camera with me and capturing whatever struck my eye. It took a focused effort for sure, but it was “easy” for me. Perhaps too easy, as I thought it had to be harder. Given my puritanical work ethic and insecurity about not having an MFA I naturally took to an approach that was both more commonplace in the art world as well as personally more difficult, namely shooting in series such at horizon or complementary colors. That approach creates a nicely packaged body of work designed for marketing to the art establishment. Sounds grand but it’s not how I think.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly useful to push a concept, to try wacky new ways to communicate an idea in a way that's fresh and visually compelling. But there are a multitude of ways to skin that cat.  I'm more drawn to William Eggleston way of creating a series of photographs with an aesthetic and emotional coherence that varies widely in subject matter. I think that’s actually a more difficult thing to do, to tie together pictures of tricycles, gas stations and light fixtures into a cohesive whole, but it also makes for a body of work that’s more layered and open to broader interpretation. 

I’m trying to let go of the need for a nicely packaged end product and just to enjoy the process of shooting. There’s magic in just picking up the camera, that’s the only expectation I’m holding, at least for at least the next 8 days.