I’ve recently been thinking about the act of sharing in our social media driven world. Sharing my words. Sharing my images. I’ve previously mentioned how fickle I’ve been with my hand constantly hovering over the delete key. It saddens me to think of all the thoughts and insight I carelessly cast away out of fear that it wasn’t good enough. I was always trying to find my place: to say the right thing, to live up to photographic expectation (whose?): to fit in I guess.
In the realm of creativity, I’ve struggled to find my own voice. Maybe that’s just part of the learning process. You emulate what you see.
Maybe mimicking others is par for the course.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I think the trouble comes when we get stuck there.
This blog has been very different for me. I’ve made a dedicated point to be transparent (even when it makes me look like an idiot), to speak without an agenda, and to share images that I love, regardless of whether anyone else will. As I peruse my own work, I see common themes. Some dating back as early as 2009, when I bought my first DSLR and really began to take this photography thing seriously.
All too often, the themes we see in our own work are mere copies of what is currently trending.
When was the last time you had an original idea? Trust me, it’s a question I’ve been asking myself as well. Have I really been seeking inspiration or just riding the coattails of everyone else on social media? I hope to contribute more than that to the record of history.
Which is why I’m taking a break from social media for the time being.
I don’t have a time frame in mind – I just want to block out all the exterior creativity so I can focus inwardly and create something truly my own.
This week, I’ve found myself in a palpable state of unrest. A busy schedule and a lack of solitude have had me running on fumes. Instead of zoning out on Instagram admiring the work of others, I grabbed my camera, walked out into my backyard and spent a few precious minutes of quiet making the images in this post using my Fujifilm X-T2 and a vintage, fully manual Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 lens.
Lea & Lens 