Why I do what I do

Why from the website Permission to Suck

The above is something that resonated with me as of late. I think, by in large I get caught up in the what I do, and I then translate that into presenting a vision of the value in what I do to clients.

Perhaps my thinking on this is backwards. Perhaps, my clients would prefer to know the "why" of what I do. If that's the case, here it is.

I make images because I can't not make images.

As a small child I loved to draw, just like most small children. As I grew older I fell in love with comic books and drew my own single issues. I never stuck with one storyline or one character because to me, the world was too big to stay in one visual and artistic place for too long. I've always been obsessed with exploring the world around me in the form of imagery. I love a bombastic, visual, emotional, spiritual, gut punch of an image. I love the type of image that makes you suck in air sharply, as if you'd been holding your breath your whole life and only now can you properly breath.

That sensation of freedom that one can get from imagery, that's why I make images. There are a million and one things that I will never be able to do or experience in the world. There are a million and one places that I will never go. But imagery can take me there, if not in person, then at least on an emotional level.

I think the value I try to explain to clients is related to this. It's related to what I love about images. While I may push the idea that I think well on my feet, and can solve just about any problem with calm creativity and professionalism, I think maybe that's not why a client should hire me.

Maybe a client should hire me because they to want that sharp intake of breath. They to want that moment of feeling like your lungs can finally fill with air for the first time in your life.

I believe that technical specifications and perfection are not so important in an image as an emotional resonance that can only be achieved by an image maker who holds an unparalleled passion for the act of searching for that explosion of visual freedom.

I make images, because I can't not make images.

I make books because I love a fun little item to hold in my hand. I want something that I can look at again and again and feel the weight of the pages as I turn them.

I write because I can't not write. There are too many ideas and thoughts boiling over in my brain to not put them down as a sort of release valve.

I make images because the world around me is beautiful and sometimes pointing isn't enough.
I make books because the world around me is beautiful and sometimes pointing and taking a picture isn't enough.
I write because the world around me is beautiful and sometimes pointing and taking a picture and printing it out isn't enough.

I do these things, because I can't not do these thing. I am these things.

A sample of the Brittany images from Thursday

Here's a small sample. We ended up with a boatload of keepers from this shoot.

My sincere apologies to anyone on dial-up. ;)

Thought Collective:

These are recent quotes and links and items from around the internet. Things I've found interesting enough to note as of late.

1. From Twitter: @warrenellis note to self: Colour = SUPERFASTSPEED / black and white = STATELY PROCESSION

I passed this along with photographers in mind, while Warren Ellis was speaking in terms of comic books. I find that my thinking in going into an image is much the same. Black and white is the intellectual, the classy, the classic. Color (or colour dependent upon your c.o.o.) is a sports car flying past you at 150 mph. It blows you away in an entirely different way. I love both types of images, and what I want to shoot will shift with my mood. They just work differently.

2. http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2009/12/08/what%e2%80%99s-the-biggest-stereotype-about-photography/

I've made arguments to this nature in the past. I've rambled on and on about how it is because of this that all imagery is subject to interpretation when created and when consumed. It's why so much photography is failing to re-gain the trust it once held. We spend too much time trying to pretend that we had the market on truth cornered to begin with.

3. Twitter again: @ScottBourne When I make a photo that causes someone to think, smile, laugh or cry, what camera, lens, f-stop is of no importance to them.

4. Sounds in Photographs

It makes you wonder what everyone's images sound like.

5. There's Something Big Beyond the Edge of the Universe

If you are a science nerd at all, you must read this. The title should get everyone's attention anyway.

6. Sidewalk Barrier as Expensive Art

It's interesting to think that we may be walking by pieces of art every day, indeed even using them for their utilitarian purposes and never realizing that they're there.