3/1/09 Dear Diary: Lost At Sea. Have Degree, But No More Photography

I’ve been trying for weeks now to re-edit my work, to go through my archives and my current edits in order to refine them. It’s become a troublesome task. Every day my pictures change a little to me, they’re constantly shifting in their skin, taking on altered meanings. I’m a bit taken aback by this because I’m usually quite decisive with these things. But trying to make sense of them has become less like photo editing and more like chasing chickens or being lost at sea. Can pictures suddenly become arbitrary or are my intentions when I shot the image the only thing that matters? I have no idea. My chief concern is that I “stay true”, but I’m beginning to think that might be the actual problem.

When I first started taking pictures it was simply a byproduct of curiosity or an emotion or interaction with someone. I came to love photography because it offered me not only an avenue for catharsis and a way to interact with people but also a way to share a beauty I otherwise couldn’t communicate. Now that I have a degree in photography and I’m trying to find a way to support myself with it, and after I have spent so much time and energy thinking and talking about it, photography has become less something I love and more like a large, heavy brick of commerce, structure, industry, expectation and duty that I carry around on my back. I no longer feel like I live my life being free, interacting and loving, letting my camera follow in its wake but like my life follows behind my camera–my camera that is no longer a tool of beauty or freedom but just another spoke in the machine. And because photography no longer feels like a byproduct of my life touching other people’s lives, but the main purpose for it, I get a sense of being disingenuous. The deep reasons for why I shoot have somehow realigned, become complicated. Hence the reason I shoot very little as of the past year.

Is this photographic post- institutionalization? I think so. I feel like what use to be part of me is now just an extension of someone else.

I guess I shouldn’t be alarmed that by the time I earned a degree in photography my perspective of photography would be topsy-turvy. It seems like I was the fool in this whole process by not realizing I should have just stuck to doing my own thing. Yes, I’ve met amazing people and learned how to take better pictures, but my curiosity… the mystery, the beauty of it all has been asphyxiated. Is a beautiful whore any less pretty than a beautiful woman? Depends on whether or not you know she’s a whore. $40,000. Not so sure it was worth it in hindsight.

(Well let’s be honest, the real reason I became a photographer is because it’s the only thing I was mildly good at. I mean, is it not fair to say that photography is the low art on the totem pole in respect to necessary skill or talent? Surely, I would give a couple of toes and maybe part of my spectrum of taste in order to exchange any photo talents I have for some talent in painting or writing. Those seem like such valid crafts in comparison to photography.)

Listening to Roger Ballen’s audio interview on Lens Culture (here) really reminded me of the different modes of photography. It takes a lot of gumption to acknowledge the real reason you take pictures, not to mention a lot of time to figure it out. I’m starting to realize the type of photographer I was taught to be and was trying to be in college is not the type of photographer that I completely am. Perhaps I just lack the consistent compassion needed to be a solid photojournalist, but there is something in me that just doesn’t feel right about freelance documentary work when it’s correlated to personal success, despite your purest intentions. I cannot reconcile capitalism with photojournalism. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Not to mention there are already plenty of amazing documentary photographers out there and the world doesn’t need me adding to the hyper-saturation. Yes, I think it’s time to get a day job, I think I need that in order to be the type of photographer I would prefer to be.

I will admit that all this moaning of philosophy and semantics and dissection of meaning can just ruin the art at times. A quote from my number one hero, David Lynch, that sums up how I feel about the issue:

“It’s better not to know so much about what things mean or how they might be interpreted or you’ll be too afraid to let things keep happening. Psychology destroys the mystery, this kind of magic quality. It can be reduced to certain neuroses or certain things, and since it is now named and defined, it’s lost its mystery and the potential for a vast, infinite experience.” -David Lynch

Part of the reason I pursued photography was so that I could avoid tangling myself up with too much specificity and to allow my emotions flow out of me with ease. I guess everything you run away from finds you in the end. I feel like photography has been dying in my eyes for the past two years, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing, maybe it will be reincarnated as something else.

I mean, after all…..

This entry was written by Peter Earl McCollough, posted on March 1, 2009 at 9:39 pm, filed under Personal. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.