why am i a photographer?
I just got finished a weekend workshop with amazing child photographer Skye Hardwick and as part of the workshop we had to write an essay answering the question “Why are you are photographer?” Here is my answer.
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Why am I a photographer? Good question.
For most of my life I assumed that I was just not a creative person. I was surrounded by creative people, yearned for a little of that magic myself, but thought that I just didn’t have it in me. Sure, I had my writing, but until recently, I didn’t consider the exercise of stringing words together a creative process. Therapy, maybe – but not creativity. In fact, it wasn’t until my love affair with photography that I realized that my writing is also art – because I go to the exact same place when I write as I do when creating photographs.
I have always been obsessed with holding on to memories. My own brain has a fairly limited ability to retain details, so my life is a series of diaries and photo albums and memory boxes – all collected in an attempt to hang on to the specifics of my life.
That is where it started.
I wanted to capture memories, and because I believe that anything really worth doing is worth doing well – I wanted to be good at it. So I got my camera and I set out to learn to be good at it. Strangely enough, it wasn’t quite as easy as I imagined. The road from there to here was a bumpy one, filled with months of self-doubt and thousands upon thousands of mediocre pictures. More than once I was tempted to give up and toss my camera in the garbage.
Then somehow, after my shutter had clicked what seemed like a million times, things started to slide into place. I started seeing something in my images and - wonder of wonders - it seemed that other people did too. Instead of just capturing technically acceptable portraits – I was starting to really *see* potential images all around me. Suddenly, art was everywhere, even when I wasn’t behind the camera. Colours took on new qualities; light danced, shadows whispered, scenes called out to be frozen in time. There was nothing in my life that was not a photograph waiting to be taken. Nothing.
My computer darkroom went from being a necessary evil, perhaps even bordering on cheating, to being part of my artistic expression. I learned to harness Photoshop to enhance my vision of what my work could and should be. Curves and levels and masks and textures used to make a fleeting fragment of time sing forever in the form of a photograph. When I’m deep at work on an image, I feel a buzz…a high that is unlike anything else. I lose myself and find myself in the magic of taking an image from raw potential to final creation. When I get to that place where I feel the image becoming what it was meant to be, time disappears and it is almost as if the image itself takes over – because there is a point were both artist and art become one.
This creative process has taught me to think less, and do more. To rely on instincts and personal style and what my eyes and heart tell me, and to worry less about focus and perfection and the directions from some forum or expert or book. To develop my internal style based on what feels right to me in the moment, because the very best art has to intensely personal and deeply experienced by the artist, otherwise it has no soul – and art with no soul cannot be received.
And so slowly I realized that this was my work, my passion, my calling, my creativity. This entire process, from beginning to end, this was my art.
In the process of just wanting to be good at something, I learned something far more important. I discovered that I had art inside me after all.
Why am I a photographer, you ask? How could I not be?
just beautiful writing! i could FEEL everything you were saying and i feel similarly. thanks for sharing.
Comment by christie — 11.05.07 @ 4:00:00
What a beautiful and well put answer! How was her workshop, i am very anxious as I will be hosting her workshop in Saratoga Springs next Sept. I can’t wait.
Cheers!
Comment by PhotoSmith Photography — 11.05.07 @ 4:02:12
You’re so incredibly eloquent.. I loved this.
Comment by sweetsalty kate — 11.05.07 @ 4:55:06
I have no idea how I found your blog, but it was meant to be. Your words are very true and are very meaningful to me at this very moment. I’ve been criticized up and down lately and even self doubted my own abilities, thank you for blogging today.
Comment by Lynne — 11.05.07 @ 2:43:22
What an inspiration!! I think you just wrote what most of us are feeling out here being new to photography and wondering if we will ever get there. Thank you for sharing your words and giving me the nudge to go forward.
Comment by jami — 11.05.07 @ 7:33:38
wow. i relate to this in so many ways. i am very new to photography and happened upon your blog through another blog, etc. i love browsing through all of your links. thanks for sharing your photographs and your thoughts! you are very talented, in taking pictures and writing!
Comment by Tara — 11.06.07 @ 8:09:19
wow…i just clicked on your link on amy m’s blog (www.afmwords.blogspot.com) and read your words. i completely understand what you wrote. i feel exactly the same way. your words express what i’m going through right now. i’m in the thick of starting to see magic in everything. never have felt creative, but am finding that i actually do have an art.
so glad you posted that. thanks.
Comment by crystalyn — 11.07.07 @ 5:44:28
I can’t tell you how much your story tugs at my very own heart and experience. i love your style…written and photographed!
Thank you for putting into words what I feel inside me about photography and memories!
Comment by Cecile — 11.09.07 @ 4:33:45
You know how much this touched me when you read it at my Workshop - so profound!!
Comment by Skye — 11.12.07 @ 3:17:15
Thanks for sharing, you express yourself so well through your writing.
Comment by Julie — 11.12.07 @ 7:59:00
Beautiful!!!, very nicely written. I love you work and want to see more! I just added you to my favorites on my blog. Your images of your daughters are breathtaking…
Comment by Heather — 11.15.07 @ 7:13:01
Thank you for this beutyfully written, honest statement of yours. Not only are your pictures really georgeous and your writing is showing a special kind of spirit as well. You are a true artist from head to toe.
Comment by Jeanine — 11.16.07 @ 10:38:40
Your words ring so true. I have personally been thinking about this very same question lately. And although my path is different, the internal feelings are similar. So glad I clicked on your blog (linked from flickr).
Comment by Anya — 11.18.07 @ 6:42:52
Beautifully written Jeanette, you are indeed the queen of eloquence.
“There was nothing in my life that was not a photograph waiting to be taken. Nothing.”
Fantastic.
Comment by Lottie — 11.21.07 @ 11:29:12
Beautiful answer! I can relate to so many of those things. I, too, so LOVE this sentence “There was nothing in my life that was not a photograph waiting to be taken. Nothing.”
Comment by Sofia — 12.20.07 @ 8:15:26
Like so many have already said before me…your words are exactly what I am feeling right now. I am new to photography and really been struggling for the past month or so as to whether or not I should just give up. I was so touched by your writing. So many photographers have told me that photography is not something you can learn it is who you are but you have shown me that with time and practice I can get what I see to come out of my camera. When I look around I can see the pictures. I just need to learn my camera better so that they come out the way my eyes want them to be seen. Does that make sense?
Your writing was beautiful. Thank you for sharing and giving me hope.
Comment by Naomi — 12.21.07 @ 10:11:58
just wondering where and how you are friend. may times be good.
Comment by Autumn Fawn — 12.28.07 @ 7:10:12
Thank you for this post. I just randomly found your blog and when I read this I wanted to cry. I am a photographer for many of the same reasons you are. I, however, am an amateur, just learning but soaking up every little bit of information possible (I don’t even know if I’m allowed to call myself a “photographer”). I take pictures because I have a terrible memory and because I have suddenly found that through photography, I can remember details and I am a creative person! I have never been a creative person. I can see a beautiful horse in my head, but if I try to draw it on paper, it ends up looking like a bowl of spaghetti or a stick figure dog (like everything I try to draw).
Anyway, with a camera in hand, I’m suddenly an artist and it feels good. Thanks for putting into beautiful words something that I could only dream of expressing so perfectly.
Comment by Liz — 01.09.08 @ 4:28:39
Just read this, and loved it. You say it so well, and it seems to be just how I feel.
How was the workshop, would you recommend it?
Comment by Anna — 01.16.08 @ 3:50:06
Hi Jeanette,
Your writing and photography is so inspiring and thought provoking.
I discovered you on Flickr and love your work and now Ive found your blog and am amazed again.
I will be adding you to my links and coming back!
Comment by amanda — 01.19.08 @ 1:44:03
beautiful words, extremely touching
Comment by Denise — 02.24.08 @ 4:26:24