Why do I do this?
08/10/07 23:17 Filed in: Photography
I
have been staring at my site
a lot
lately, if for no other reason than noone else does. I have never
had anyone respond to one of these blogs and feel like I am wasting
my time with all of this, photos included. I began the site to have
a goal and display area since pbase where I originally started
seems to reward those that spend much time there and rally around
for mutual self admiration. It was too much of an effort to develop
a cadre of high achieving photographers to criticize and raise our
art, if indeed I can be said to be doing art. And Nature
Photographers dot net has become more of the same, with more
technical facility admittedly. I never even started ...
I have used the site to showcase my trials to gain technical skill while looking to 'do' art. Nature photography, however, is more difficult to accomplish the goal of being an artist, doing art. One has to expand one's repertoire of species recorded. The pull to do so for the naturalist is overwhelming. One cannot avoid the magnetism of the pretty, the beautiful, the simple sunset. The cliche of the pretty is too seductive, the din of the cliche is probably only greater for the great chronicler of the house cat. One has only to look at my collections to see the problem. I would like to have a great China wall to separate the chronicles and the simply pretty from my more creative attempts but the natural division of the world seems to needlessly complicate this separation and to gain some notoriety on the net one has to front the pretty.
I will maybe resolve this or stay stuck where I am or both. A larger commitment may be enough to do this.
I have used the site to showcase my trials to gain technical skill while looking to 'do' art. Nature photography, however, is more difficult to accomplish the goal of being an artist, doing art. One has to expand one's repertoire of species recorded. The pull to do so for the naturalist is overwhelming. One cannot avoid the magnetism of the pretty, the beautiful, the simple sunset. The cliche of the pretty is too seductive, the din of the cliche is probably only greater for the great chronicler of the house cat. One has only to look at my collections to see the problem. I would like to have a great China wall to separate the chronicles and the simply pretty from my more creative attempts but the natural division of the world seems to needlessly complicate this separation and to gain some notoriety on the net one has to front the pretty.
I will maybe resolve this or stay stuck where I am or both. A larger commitment may be enough to do this.