29th August 2011
I’ve been beavering away very diligently on my TAoP course, and I’ve just completed Assignment 1, a significant milestone, as it sort of sets the pace for the rest of the course; and therein lies the nub of my woes.
Ever since the OCA Forum thread about the ‘Emperors Suit of Clothes’ I’ve not had the Mojo anymore to go out and shoot the images I like(ed)! I’m sure this is just a spell of the blues I’m going through but it seems ages since I found anything I really wanted to photograph. That thread, and it’s replies, have really made me think about what MY photography is about and does it have meaning in the world of art. Prior to that thread I’d honestly thought it did, but now? I’m not sure anymore. I’ve really had to change my mindset over the past few weeks to try to fit in what seems to me to be an alien culture, photographs of things that are supposed to have ‘meaning’ above and beyond the beauty that I thought art was meant to reflect.
Even though I can now see that the sort of imagery I’ve been asked to look at in the course reading list does have a narrative, I still can’t get to like them, and I certainly don’t really want to emulate them, even though that would be a very easy path to follow. I personally don’t think there’s any great art to taking photographs in ‘Deadpan’ style or most of the others that are mentioned in Charlotte Cottons’ book, what I do think is that there is plenty of narrative. So should MY art be all about narrative? Or should I stick with my gut feel that beauty has a big place in MY photography? I suppose it’s too much to ask to have both??
So, going back to my initial statement at the beginning of this post; I’ve passed a significant milestone having completed my first assignment, but where to now? It’s probably too early yet to decide, I’ve not had any feedback from a tutor on my effort so far, but the feeling of being lost and wondering what to do about the lack of enthusiasm for taking photographs at the moment has got me quite vexed.
I’ve had ideas about a couple of bodies of work I’d like to undertake, but every time I get down to planning them I find reasons not to follow through; it’s been done before, what meaning am I trying to imbue, where am I going to find the right subjects, I haven’t got the right equipment, and so they never proceed. I suppose that the only thing I can do is start, better to start something and see what comes from it than not start at all and therefore never do anything.
Help! has anyone else been here before me? What did you do to get out of it?
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