Hmm Birthday soon.
So in 4 days I turn 23. Im not quite sure how i feel about getting older. I spent all this year thinking I'd finally started maturing and getting somewhere with my goals but I really dont know. At the beginning of this year my Photography business finally started making some money and i felt that I had finally met a few people worth spending time with.
I was reading Annalee's blog earlier and i think i definitely agree that our birthday's are a time where we stop and take stock of all we have an haven't achieved. I think my annual weirdness about my birthday stems somewhat from the fact that it is dab smack in the middle of the year. So it arrives just as we are in limbo about events and decisions.
Im so happy that I am finally getting somewhere with my photography, nightclub stuff may not be especially glamourous but atleast its paying the bills and allowing me to keep working. It has enabled me to meet a whole variety of new people. Managers, Bar staff, Other togs and a few potential models.
At the same time I really wish that i could be doing more artistic shoots but for 1.5 years of shooting commercially im just glad i havent had to give up and find myself a day job.
I recently read a post about writing an artistic statement about what your art means to you. I found it really interesting and surprisingly difficult to put my thoughts into a coherent form describing my hopes and aims:
***
What does my art mean to me?
I have always had a love of the incorporeal. The worlds that exist only within our minds, The worlds where colours are so bright and deep that it is like looking into an ocean of light from the shore of darkness. It is like standing on the beach and looking out to sea at that which could be. My art is defined by those small yearnings we get when we look at something.
This something could be as simple as dust in the air or as complicated as standing in rush hour traffic as a million things happening at once. Photography makes me yearn to see the fantastic in everyday life, as if I could reach forward and rip awake the flatness of the real world and tear through into a world of unimaginable contrast.
I want to capture that undefinable something, the something that comes across in a persons eyes as they laugh or experience. I want to take hold of it, take it into myself and capture it using my camera.
I suppose for myself photography is not so much about what is, but what could be. It requires an openness of spirit that we are taught to deny ourselves, the same freedom to love and enjoy like that which we see in a small child, or in young animals. The absolute lack of fear of what the world could do. It is a trust in the universe and all its wondrous possibilities.
It is about colours that you feel with your heart, about words that you hear with your mind. I want to capture that spark that exists in everything and everyone. I want to live in the world of my imagination; I want to take people there. I want them to stop dead in the middle of their busy days and really see the world around them. I want to stop them and have them go wow!
I want to bring people to this world of joy, I want them to live there and feel free and safe and able to believe.
This is what I believe.
Benjamin
***
It sounds a bit weird to me now but i still think it realyl describes my aim for photography.
I get the feeling i might live as a starving artist though
So in 4 days I turn 23. Im not quite sure how i feel about getting older. I spent all this year thinking I'd finally started maturing and getting somewhere with my goals but I really dont know. At the beginning of this year my Photography business finally started making some money and i felt that I had finally met a few people worth spending time with.
I was reading Annalee's blog earlier and i think i definitely agree that our birthday's are a time where we stop and take stock of all we have an haven't achieved. I think my annual weirdness about my birthday stems somewhat from the fact that it is dab smack in the middle of the year. So it arrives just as we are in limbo about events and decisions.
Im so happy that I am finally getting somewhere with my photography, nightclub stuff may not be especially glamourous but atleast its paying the bills and allowing me to keep working. It has enabled me to meet a whole variety of new people. Managers, Bar staff, Other togs and a few potential models.
At the same time I really wish that i could be doing more artistic shoots but for 1.5 years of shooting commercially im just glad i havent had to give up and find myself a day job.
I recently read a post about writing an artistic statement about what your art means to you. I found it really interesting and surprisingly difficult to put my thoughts into a coherent form describing my hopes and aims:
***
What does my art mean to me?
I have always had a love of the incorporeal. The worlds that exist only within our minds, The worlds where colours are so bright and deep that it is like looking into an ocean of light from the shore of darkness. It is like standing on the beach and looking out to sea at that which could be. My art is defined by those small yearnings we get when we look at something.
This something could be as simple as dust in the air or as complicated as standing in rush hour traffic as a million things happening at once. Photography makes me yearn to see the fantastic in everyday life, as if I could reach forward and rip awake the flatness of the real world and tear through into a world of unimaginable contrast.
I want to capture that undefinable something, the something that comes across in a persons eyes as they laugh or experience. I want to take hold of it, take it into myself and capture it using my camera.
I suppose for myself photography is not so much about what is, but what could be. It requires an openness of spirit that we are taught to deny ourselves, the same freedom to love and enjoy like that which we see in a small child, or in young animals. The absolute lack of fear of what the world could do. It is a trust in the universe and all its wondrous possibilities.
It is about colours that you feel with your heart, about words that you hear with your mind. I want to capture that spark that exists in everything and everyone. I want to live in the world of my imagination; I want to take people there. I want them to stop dead in the middle of their busy days and really see the world around them. I want to stop them and have them go wow!
I want to bring people to this world of joy, I want them to live there and feel free and safe and able to believe.
This is what I believe.
Benjamin
***
It sounds a bit weird to me now but i still think it realyl describes my aim for photography.
I get the feeling i might live as a starving artist though