On My Creative State

If the [edit out]'s confuse you, it's self-explanatory why they are there. They obviously offended someone.

Today I was at Joe's for a bit and started to think about my photographic creative state. As most of you all know, I have been doing a portrait series for the past month and didn't know what my idea for them was. That has been on my mind a lot lately.

A few days ago, I talked with Jenny Link about that body of work and asked her opinion on it. We discussed it for a bit and I realized that she was the first person to give me feedback on it that wasn't empty. What I mean is, I got a lot of "great photos!" type comments on them, but nothing really helpful or meaningful until we started talking about them. I really miss that part about college.

That lead me today to the Barnes & Noble photography section, where I looked through books on photography theory. I'm at a point now where I need to be more critical about my body of work and where I want to take it. I want to be. They didn't really have any books on theory of portraiture; I probably have to look at academic journals or essays on that subject to really get some ideas on what a portrait can be and develop an idea for myself. So, I'm in a creative crisis right now, not that it's a bad thing. It's actually good for me because it is fueling my desire to get into a deeper meaning about photography and what it means.

Jenny said she liked my photos of the girls on the bed more than the ones on the beach. She says its more intimate and the photographer's presence is not felt as much as in the beach ones. The ones on the bed more closely speaks of the dialog and interaction between the subject and photographer for her. In the beach ones, she feels the photographer's presence a bit too much, ie she "sees" the photographer constructing the photo. She sees the depth of field, the composition, etc. and the background takes away from the subject. I understand what she means with the beach photos though. In a sense, they are half about the subject and half about the environment, I guess the idea there isn't as cohesive. It is true though, because I try to be at the beach at a certain time in certain light to "catch" it, so it does take away from the subject in a sense. Especially with the idea I have right now for beach shots, which I haven't been able to find time to do yet. They are becoming more and more about the environment in the beach shots. In a way, that series has started to place less emphesis on my subject and more on the environment.

I was disappointed with the beach the last time I shot there with Susannah because it wasn't the way I wanted it. The tides were not in my favor and I didn't get to shoot the photos I wanted in the water. I think I might head towards the direction of going over to people's houses and taking photographs of them in their personal spaces.

I am, however probably going to stop using close friends as subjects because it is becoming a huge lose-lose situation for me that is creating huge amounts of jealousy and tension. When I asked Jenny if she saw those photos she said, "You mean the ones of the Alamo girls?" which really just enunciated the entire thing perfectly.

[Someone got mad at me] because she thought I didn't want to take photos of her, which according to girl logic, [edit out]. Which of course, is NOT the case at all and is putting me in the position of having to justify who I choose and why, which I feel like I don't need to justify. She even asked "[edit out]?" like being a friend of mine on some level was a prerequisite of who I choose to photograph.

It is not a "who Adam thinks is pretty" thing, although it might seem as much. There are deeper conscious and unconscious reasons on who I choose to photograph so far, which I will not go into because that will just lead to huge arguments.

It's gotten to the point now where people are waiting/expecting me to want to photograph them or they get mad at me because I don't (and then they think I don't they they are pretty). Another person asked me if I thought [x] was prettier than them, which is so wrong on so many levels I can't even begin to de-construct it. I obviously can't say "no", and I wouldn't. I said "of course you are" and she doesn't believe me. Can't win. Don't want to deal with this, or let it get in the way of what I want to eventually do when I know what I want to do with this, so I am not using any more girls from that set. But I still reserve the right to, and if I do, I will not answer other people's answers of "why?".

To tell you the truth, so far I choose who I choose because at some point, an image of them in a certain way pops into my head and I wanted to capture that. That is the sole reason why I choose who I have so far. That's how the whole "white dress" thing started. I originally had also wanted a straw hat on them on the beach, but I haven't been able to find the one I saw in my head yet.

I have also been asked when photos of dudes are coming. I do have a person in mind to take photographs of, but I haven't been able to schedule anything with him yet.

Discussions with me on this post would be greatly appreciated.