I have come to a realization in the last week that may help me pull myself out of my creative funk. As is often the case, that realization came from some serious searching within. When we seek inwardly, the answers are there. So what did I find during the perusal of the depths of my soul? I am a purist, plain and simple. I like things (and people) to be real and honest.
It’s not that at age 53 I didn’t know this about myself; what’s new to me is all the ways that this part of my personality impacts my outlook and my “inlook.” Here is an example: I have never been a fan of science fiction and fantasy. Why? Because the situations are not “real.” I prefer reading non-fiction. (Before you say it, I do have an imagination and I do understand the literary principles of metaphor and allegory. That’s not what this is about.) I also don’t believe in dressing a certain way to manipulate a person’s perception of me; I have neither the energy or inclination to maintain that fictional persona. I don’t hide my thoughts regarding religion and politics either because they are, for better or for worse, what make me who I am. Conversely, I make clear my belief that everyone is entitled to their opinions and I will respect them as long as they are coming from a place of personal integrity.
So what does all of this have to do with my recent photo/creative funk? Here it is. The more I learn about photography, the more I realize that so much of it is not real. That makes me, the purist who wants things to be honest, very sad. My feelings are almost like those of a child who has no option but to accept the fact that Santa Claus is fictitious. Just like I don’t want to read fantasy, I don’t want to create it in my photos either. That said, I must add here that I am a huge fan of imagination.
This recent journey of discovery started last week when I was doing the photos for the last Food Friday post. I knew that I wanted to photograph ice cream, so I looked up suggestions that might help me from ending up with a melted ugly mess. What I found was ugly, but not a melted mess. Why was it not a melted mess? Because most of the “ice cream” that you see in professional food photography is probably not ice cream at all. It is a mixture of play dough, mashed potatoes, or frosting. There are many recipes out there for photographable ice cream, ice cream that will make photographers look like super hero in that they can keep ice cream from melting under bright lights. Here is one such recipe:
Berry Ice Cream Substitute Recipe
1/3 cup instant mashed potato flakes
1 cup vegetable shortening
4-plus cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
About 1/4 cup of mashed berries
This concoction certainly is not going to melt! No wonder my ice cream photos look like a melted mess. Because they are! In some weird way, this makes me feel better. It’s not that I am necessarily a bad photographer; it is that I am an honest photographer. Just like with me the person, what you see is what you get in my photos as well. If I say it’s ice cream, it’s ice cream!
I also do not believe in editing reality. What do I mean by that? As a photographer, I will edit for camera user error - exposure adjustments, contrast, temperature, but I don’t edit to make someone or something look “perfect.” In my weird way of thinking, perfection comes in one’s ability to accept and embrace imperfection. If I seriously edit a photo, there is no question that it is edited. The editing becomes part of the creation, not a means to hide some perceived flaw.
When my girls were little, they often had marker on their hands or face in photos. That was life then and that is what I want to remember. When they were teenagers, they had skin imperfections. Again, that was a part of their life at that stage. I have wrinkles. I earned them. When we erase these things from our photos, we are erasing a part of a person and a part their life. We are saying that something about them or their life was “not good enough.” When my children’s children look back at photos of their mothers as teenagers, I don’t want them to feel bad about themselves because they have acne and they believe that their mothers didn’t. I want to preserve the life that I have lived, not the life I wish that I had lived.
Another “ah-ha” moment for me and my own photography recently is that I have realized that can only photograph things that have real (there’s that word again!) meaning to me…unless someone wants to pay me for photos and then we’ll talk. LOL! Seriously, yesterday’s CY365 photo prompt had to do with creating a still life. I know that there are people out there who collect stuff just to photograph it. Their sole purpose for having those things is to take pictures of them. I can’t do that. If I don’t have a personal connection or attachment to something, I can’t make art with it in a meaningful way. As I was unpacking these feelings, I heard me saying to me, “Woa. Wait a minute here. Let’s talk about all those Lego mini figures that you have.” Ouch! Busted! Well, not really. I went back through my photos and looked at all of those in which I had photographed mini figures and realized that in every instance in which I photographed a Lego figure, there was a direct and meaningful correlation to something that was going on in my life at that moment. Those mini figures were often me. Whew! I now feel vindicated!
I don’t mean this to sound judgmental in any way here. I am saying that I can’t, if I am true to myself, create in certain ways. And because I can’t, my photos will probably never be as “good” (whatever that really means) as many others. My funk stemmed from believing that they could. The truth is that doing things the way I do, they won’t; they can’t.
Today I can say that that is OK. Whatever comes from my camera is an extension of what rests deep inside me. What you see is what you get. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I'm curious how others feel about such things. Leave a comment here letting us know your thoughts and be enetred for another chance to win a phone app gift card to be given away at the end of this week!
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