Photo Noob: Hello Ego my Old Friend (Sorry about the book. I fail at this whole facebook thing sometimes.) Recently I was having a conversation with a wonderful young lady at work and we were talking about art. We were comparing how fast people catch on to things, how far some people start ahead of others starting points because of natural talent, and I was referring to Malcomb Gladwells theory of 10,000 hours to mastery. Just so its said I buy in to this theory. I think anyone could decide that they wanted to master say the violin, and they would be a master in about 10 years of dedicated practice (2 hours a day with attention towards continued and progressive difficulty.). She explained to me that she does not believe that anyone can pick anything up something like that. In fact she thinks some people can spin their wheels trying all they want but will never find that elusive spark. And there it was rearing its ugly head screaming at me that I was one of those people. I would just never get it no matter how hard I tried. I could master the technical skills but would just never understand the art of photography. Ahhh...Hello ego my old friend. Throughout this adventure called art I have struggled to find a reasonable level of compassion for my art while attempting to stay a little bit removed. Early on I was crushed when my peers in social media didnt like the works I was producing. When I would work for hours on something and the reception I got would be close to what you would get if your child came home with a finger painting. Ohhh...Um...Thats so good....What is it?and thats if I got any reception at all. I convinced myself I sucked, that I was a failure, and that I should give up. Im not really sure why but I didnt give up. I walked through that ugly first couple months, maybe with my head hung low, but I did. Im not sure if I would have though if a few people hadnt have been so kind to me (Sara Kennedy, Shannon McFarland, Sara Kohl, Susan Geist, Eric Veltman, and my baby girl Judy Jamison thank you all so so much.) But as I walked through that time I made two very important decisions concerning my art. 1. Ego can not be attached to art. I need to separate that part of myself from what I am creating. I need to be cold and surgical about my work once it is finished, and I cannot allow other peoples opinions one way or the other to sway the direction I am heading in through an internalized peer pressure system that is mostly a self created construct. My art is my art. I will improve at my pace not anyone elses. If people like it; cool. If I am just a kid playing with finger paints that is cool too as long as I am learning the lessons I need to out of the experience. (I kinda like finger paints anyway.) 2. No matter the results of today as long as I learned something new today I have reached my goal. I understand that people will always remember you for worst work and judge you by that. It is unfortunate but very true, and it is unfortunate but also true thats how I judge myself. Even if yesterday was phenomenal if today didnt work out I will judge myself on solely on today. Its in my nature I suppose. So to move forward I had to cut that out as well and replace my definition of success. Success in a day now is learning something you didnt know yesterday. (Catch lights need to be in eyes for a sharp portrait. Next day catch lights should be at 10 and 2. Feathering a lasso selection is the best way to avoid obvious merging issues. )Each one of those equaled a success. I know I dont suck at photography. I have people I dont know come up and compliment me on my photography. I am now confident in my technical abilities and I have had people who are miles beyond me tell me that I pretty good. But I wanted to write this to let everyone know out there who is trying to master anything that ego will haunt you for the good and bad throughout this journey at times. It really doesnt belong on the ride but it will demand to be. When it rears its ugly head breath smile and just keep moving forward. We are all in line for success. Some peoples lines are just a little shorter. Just dont get out of line.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 02:58:47 +0000
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