Shooting in digital feels strange to me. I went on an adventure yesterday to shoot! [: After I shot for class I wanted to carry around my film camera. I’m less successful with film but I think I learn a lot more from it because of that reason. Life is ridiculous huh.
Young (my photo professor) went through a mini critique of my photos today and he kept using the word “peculiar” haha and it was sort of a long critique! Yayyayay. I sometimes suspect that there is a stigma against making art to impress someone or to get good marks but I think it’s kind a silly stigma… You learn a language to talk to someone. You make art for the same reason, it’s just a different language. Even if it is for somewhat less than noble reasons or if it becomes that way or if you just want to communicate to someone something. Why do you have to make art for some invisible art god, maintaining the purest of motives? When people fall in love, nobody thinks to themselves I’m going to be the perfect person, the ultimate lover. It just sneaks up on you and one day you’re in it and you can’t stand to be out of it. And when you are melancholy and nostalgic, nobody thinks to themselves I’m going to feel sad right now. Again, you run into an old friend or hear a song and suddenly you’re transported back into a certain time and place and you can’t shake the feelings and the memories. When I photograph, I don’t think to myself, I want to be the most immaculate photographer there ever was- never miss a shot, always be ready, follow all the rules and non-rules. I mean I guess I should do these things or think them but mostly I think in terms of people… Sometimes I wonder what Lee Friedlander would think of this shot or speculate if he ever felt the way I did. Or I think about what would spark the sensibility of Young and make him like my photo immensely. Or I think about things my parents would think about when they saw through my lens. Silly things like that. The photograph does the magic that turns something trivial into something like attraction, nostalgia, pity.
I wish your professor reads your blog
