Friday 17 August 2012

We all feel like this right?



Recently, I changed the title of this blog from 'James Dyas Davidson Photography' to just 'James Dyas Davidson'. The reason I did that was because I asked myself what was the purpose in keeping the blog?

Well, way back, this is was the answer. Essentially it was recording my return to photography. Looking back I think, 'Who would be interested in that?' and of course nobody was. It was good to get my thoughts on 'paper' though.

Reading photography books and blogs, you learn that embracing life and following YOUR passions could make you a more consistent and interesting photographer. Great. That led to this post.

So you go and shoot your 'passion' and soon find many others have the same passion and do it better than you. You need to find your 'voice'.

But you get distracted by requests to shoot the odd wedding, events, promos, etc. You try the odd competition. You try to emulate cool stuff you see in magazines and websites. Essentially, you don't shoot your passion and you don't get the praise and adulation you thought you might and you hit the ground with a bump.

You start to worry again about technical stuff, your workflow and your post processing skills because compared to others, you suck.

You go back to what kind of photographer are you? and that dreaded creative block hits. You need some inspiration and lo and behold, they tell me to shoot my passion and embrace life. Oh yeah, you lost that for a moment there.

Your off again on the right track for a while. It's beginning to all come together. Shame you can't do this full time perhaps? (At this point, for me, illness and time off work forced a rethink.)

Great, it's all sorted - you know what to photograph and why, you will remain a 'hobbyist' photographer and you're getting the hang of social media and websites. Positive feedback and comments begin to flow in you get some work requests. Oddly enough, not in the type of photography you shoot but hey ho.

Ah, but old habits die hard.

Time to learn the history of photography, learn about the past masters and to see what has been done and how you could add to that legacy in your own small way. (Many of my posts in 2011 were about the history of photography.)

Your blogs posts get closer to what you want your blog to be but again, 'life' happens to you and you have to deal with other stuff.

You meet or read about other photographers who 'say something in their work' and reflect their age. You want to too, but what are you saying? what is your world about? You ask around.

Your thoughts about what part do you want photography to play in your life is a recurring thought.

You start to get annoyed with yourself for going round in circles and always promising to not go back over old ground or to stand still. One step forward to your goals - always.

But good God! here you are blogging about losing focus again and how you're not going to again!!

You stall.

Then you listen to this and think, 'I am not alone. I am not a loser. Why don't more people talk about such things as fear, procrastination and self doubt?'

After all, don't we all feel like this?

So this blog is really about me, my struggles and what interests me, not just photography. Hence the name change.




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a great blog posting, James, and yes, you are pointing to something others feel too - or perhaps I should just say that I do!

Anonymous said...

Much informative and useful article… I like it personally…

Duncan Fawkes said...

Yes, we all feel like that (or at least I do!).

I like to think/hope that over time the funnel narrows so that you have increasing focus and waver less, but aside from that I think it's just a fact of life.

James Dyas Davidson said...

Thanks Michael. Finding out that is more common than I thought.

Hope so too Duncan. Some are lucky to have such clear focus and are not influenced by what others think. Thanks for the comment.

H Duncan said...

thank you, James :) Likewise (I think!).