9/30/10

It's very easy, as a photographer outside of a supportive artistic environment, to lose sight of the fact that you don't know everything about your work, even though you are the one who made it. I recently had the opportunity for critique of my work by a good friend whom I hold in high regard on the subjects of art and art criticism. Being very active in the contemporary San Diego art scene, and someone who is not entirely a photographer or photographic critic, his input from a general contemporary art perspective, was given with great value to me and my work.

Working on my own, without the support or critique of other photographers or artists, I've come to see my work in a very 2 dimensional light. That is, I see my photos as either this one thing, or this other thing, sometimes both, but never anything else. This is a problem, especially because those two categories are both based on very surface characteristics. I've lost any sense of what my photos are about or what motivates them on a subconscious level.


There is another problem I have as a result of not having other artists to show my work to on a regular basis. I know, as a photographer who has been shooting for 7+ years, what I want my photos to look like, and consequently, which photos I believe to be successful and which ones are not. Strictly based on the experiences I have had, I can look at a photo and say yes, that is awesome, or eh, that's just ok, or no, that's terrible. However, when I asked the aforementioned friend visiting from California to pick out his favorite photos, he picked a few that I would never have, and by doing so, shared with me a perspective of my work I would not have otherwise been aware of.

Both he and my roommate insisted that some of the photos I had edited out of the blog-worthy pile, were actually quite blog-worthy. With this viewpoint backing up my decision, I'm going to share some of my photos with you that I would not have otherwise shared, and I am going to ask you, my viewer, to let me know what you think of them.

So, friends and neighbors, what do you think of these? Should they, or should they not, be on my blog?

And for that matter, go ahead and let me know if there are any photos anywhere on this blog, in past posts as well as this one, that should not be featured.