[Photography is often what keeps me up at night - yes I'm in my pj's -- I was about to go to bed tonight when all of its possibilities started emerging in my mind :) ]I had dinner with a dear friend on Friday -- a dinner that lasted more than 3 hours -- simply because he asked the question, "What are you afraid of?" after I revealed to him my anxieties with my approaching graduation. What am I afraid of? Why, when I've been asked how my photography project is going, do I cower and respond that it simply isn't going at all? It's not like me to not take something head on, even when I'm uncomfortable with it. I couldn't accurately answer the question for my friend at that time, but after thinking about it this weekend I think I realized what may be behind it: I'm living my life on a 3-month deadline.
Three months until graduation (actually now less than that), and I'm starting to freak out about my accomplishments thus far and where I am headed. I don't have a job lined up, as I am only now starting to apply to jobs that - you've guessed it - aren't really related to my major or my minor. I feel pressure to have this job so I can help support my boyfriend as he works full time and also goes to school, who has also in the past week asked me to move in with him come December. I feel like my life is being planned for me, and it scares me that I'm not in control of it. But why can't I be? I CAN say no to a job that I don't feel passionately about, I CAN say I'm not ready to move in with my boyfriend (which I finally had the courage to do) because I need to figure my life out first, and that I CAN reclaim my passion for photography. I CAN do all of these things, but it can be scary to take them on when you don't have a back-up plan or one that is less than you desire. For instance, if I don't have a job come December, I will still be living at home, under the same rules and environment as I have up until now. I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to do things the "right" way, and so to go into a photography project (or a life project, if you will) that I don't feel absolutely grounded in and which I can't see the end result in (which I SHOULDN'T be doing anyway) is making me vulnerable and exposed to failure. But again, WHY is failure always considered a BAD thing? Haven't we tried redefining failure in class? Now it's time to put it into practice in our lives. You never know if you don't try.
And so after U2's "Stuck in A Moment You Can't Get Out Of" popped up when shuffling my iTunes, I felt that THIS was my moment to begin. To actually commit. To pick up my camera and DO THIS! Mary - your post was SO inspiring, and Jacki and Monica- the fact that you've been posting your work lately has really made me want to get back into this groove that we have been temporarily pulled away from.
So in the words of my dear Bono:
I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard
I'm just tryin' to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company
I never thought you were a fool
But darling, look at you
You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight
'Cause tears are going nowhere, baby
You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
I will not forsake
The colors that you bring
The nights you filled with fireworks
They, they left you with nothing
I am still enchanted
By the light you brought to me
I listen through your ears
Through your eyes I can see
You are such a fool
To worry like you do
I know it's tough and you can never get enough
Of what you don't really need now, my, oh my
You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Oh love, look at you now
You've got yourself stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
I was unconscious, half asleep
The water is warm 'til you discover how deep
I wasn't jumping, for me it was a fall
It's a long way down to nothing at all
You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
And if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along on this stony pass
And if, and if the night runs over
And if the day won't last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass
It's just a moment
This time will pass
The Photo Assignments Begin:
What I realized is that unless I discipline myself and always provide myself enough options and opportunities, I will never follow through with this project. You all know where it emerged from, but I don't know where it is going. I've hit that peak where everything I think I know is already laid out on the table (i.e.blog) for you all to see. What comes next none of us can anticipate. I love surprises, so this should be a fun time :)
So...what to do when you've already coughed up everything you're aware of? When you've hit that imaginary wall that I usually call writer's block, but in this case photo block? Recycle and reuse assignments that helped spark emotion and creativity in the past. And for this I thank you Shane for opening up the barrier between words and art: the cut-up paper project.
Since I didn't know what I was in for last time I blistered up my fingers from ravenous scissor use, I decided to blow up my font to a manageable 14 pt. size and double space the words (all 2,463 of them) of my 2 blog posts that reread (thanks for the tip, Mary) that I found to have provoked the most emotion and discovery for me personally. So, from the most recent "Every parting is a form of death, as every reunion is a type of heaven." ~Tryon Edwards and "Dad & I: Do the albums lie?" blog posts, I have cut up each word and put them in my jumbo-marshmallows-in-cocoa-friendly SNC mug.
Tomorrow morning I will wake up (though the temptation is really really tugging at me to pick them out now) and pull out a few random pinches of paper and then type them up in the order I picked them, and then they will be added to a plastic zip baggy so they don't pollute the rest of the mug, which, at the end of this project may be filled with a celebratory margarita :)
With these randomly generated words [(which are going to kick ass because I wrote them in the first place -- hah, sorry, I don't think snarky is my look, but I had to try it) correction: which will be both frustrating to work with and also highly revealing to me (there that's better)] I will re-familiarize myself with this technological hunk of plastic and glass (that some would call a camera, or in my case, a lens through which to see the world) and shoot. Yes, you heard me. SHOOT. I will SHOOT everything and anything related, even remotely, to these wonderful words that have taken me thus far but may still pack a punch to ignite the fire under my project (and my stubborn butt). Maybe the photos will be literal, others figurative, others intuitive (remember the Myer's Briggs?- I was a huge N) but in any case, I am going to do this thing.
And the best part is that I'm not going to say I have to be "done" with it by December 14. Why should art stop when school does? All of you have graduated and have proved to me that it doesn't stop there, and what a relief that is! I'll take out a chunk of words each week, post those words on the blog for you to see, to ponder about what I might be shooting during that week (if you so choose to follow) and then I will post some images related to those words, and repeat that process with a brand new set the following week.
I'm uber excited about where this could take me, because for the first time I'm not going into it seeing the end result. There is no possible way to know. I'm not even going to brainstorm "what if's" because that will just get me stuck into photo block. Maybe I'll fail, but who the hell cares? That's the perfect leaping board for new discoveries.
Rock on PHOTOPHANTASTICCS!
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