With March ended I can see that I hit some kind of record for this photoblog
with more photos posted this month than in any other previous month in the
past year and a half. Still, I'm never going to commit to posting a photo a
day as is the norm amongst 'serious' photobloggers because I don't want photography
ever to become a chore; when the muse leaves me, or other commitments get the
better of me, I just don't post.
Perhaps
I'm being more prolific because I'm feeling more inspired lately. Perhaps
you think I'm just being less selective. Perhaps it's because I'm less precious
about my camera these days so I take it with me almost everywhere. These things
may have something to do with it but I prefer to think it has more to do with
my motives. I've questioned before why I have this photoblog and I've talked
about trying to leave ego out of my photography but I don't think I've really
achieved it before. It's not that I've reached an inner-Zen understanding of
myself or my photography; I'm not that good of a person. It is that I've finally
accepted that the aim of my photography is simply to please myself.
I realize that sounds masturbatory but what I
mean is I can't improve my standing among my peers (or my rating at photoblogs.org)
by making 'better' or different pictures. It's really unlikely that a
single person will add me to their favorites today even if today's picture
is the best I've ever taken and I used to resent that. My current daily odds
of picking up a new favorite are 14:1 and getting worse daily. If I show my
wife or friends a print I'm really proud of it won't make them love me any
more, or any less. But this is not a bad thing; it is freeing. If I'm not taking
pictures for anyone else then I only have myself to consider. If I took a picture,
liked it and posted it, then I can't ask for anything more. If someone else
likes it too, that's great, but I made the picture for me. If I were A-list,
top-10 popular then I might take shots to please my audience not myself. If
I got 10 comments a day telling me how crap my stuff was then I might try to
change to please my critics. Without either strong positive or negative reactions
my own opinion is really the only one that counts. |
