Grow yourself. Don't stay in one comfortable spot. Antasia Cazabon intrigues me because I don't consider her work particularly strong but she carries a specific style throughout her body of work. Although each of her photos are simple and quite different in space and lighting, she is consistent about what she shows and how she shows it. This purely motivates me to try more things. I think that my style is similar to hers in the marginalization and limitation she shows. As the viewer we know that there is a face- eyes, ears, mouth that is not communicating with us. I ask the question- why. Why don't we see the face? Why are the figures marginalized? Then I question my own work, similarly. This work makes me motivated to try something new. Yes, it shows me a more developed style and its potential, but it also makes me want to explore my own photographs. I think that the second photo is similar to Randi's recent photos. It has the same sort of idea/quality. Notice how the shadow plays a large part of the photo and our interpretation. Everything in the frame is recognizable/relateable but we cannot decipher one particular meaning from it.Continuing from my last post, there is nothing extraordinary about the above photos. They are quite simple and could be easily recreated. But they are not telling us a story. Unfortunately, nothing we shoot will be original as we think. Therefore, don't stop exploring all ideas. Don't be comfortable with what you have created, don't be comfortable with what you ARE creating. Shoot more. This is a lesson for myself. Even though I know how I want to shoot, I shouldn't settle for that. This is the hardest thing to overcome because I want to settle for something. One thing that will determine my path. But truthfully, that is shit. Most of the work I've done so far has been shit and will continue to be shit until I really push myself to NOT SETTLE. As photographers we have nothing settled and everything is undetermined. I think this means that we need to be uncomfortable and feel unaccomplished in order to grow.
Are we growing?
2 comments:
This is the first truly emotional post. I commend the intellectual engagement of the participants of this blog, but what of feeling more about what you're doing, what you're observing, what you're looking at? ...not to preclude intellectualism but to create between the intellectual and emotional a synergy?
And she's right: settling leads to routine, routine to stagnancy, stagnancy to anything but art and discovery and growth.
Don't be afraid of what you feel; more than what you think it defines you.
“I think this means that we need to be uncomfortable and feel unaccomplished in order to grow.”
I couldn’t agree more with that statement, and that feeling has driven me to do most of the work I have done here at St. Norbert. All of us need this wake up call, because if we settle with “getting it done” there is so connection. You can tell how the artist feels about their work if you get to hear them talk about it. I want to be able to speak proudly and clearly about what my process was. Make sure your work means something to you whether it’s good or bad. I know when I am settling, and I feel like other people can tell too. I don’t want to give off that aura. What I enjoy about viewing other people’s work is seeing their images as an extension of themselves, to get to take a peek into their subconscious.
Immediately I saw the similarity between your work and Cazabon's, mostly in the way that you both section the human body in your images and the angles that are explored. What I think would be interesting for you is to really explore all of these spaces (and new ones), which I know you can find. I am really interested in the compositions you have created already and would really enjoy seeing you explore those more. Once each of us builds a large collection of these spaces they come together more. I feel like that is why we need to SHOOT A LOT. If we settled we wouldn’t find what we might have if we did. I know that if I don’t have a lot of photos with different approaches I feel unaccomplished like I didn’t try. That’s such a horrible feeling!!
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