...A Photo..No, Nevermind...Well, Maybe...grapher...Okay...I dunno'...
I'm not sure how to phonetically write out the disgusted, reluctant huff sound, but imagine that right now. *huff* I think I'm going to get back into photography. There. I said it. Why the disgusted, reluctant huff you may ask? Because anyone with a nice DSLR camera calls him/herself a photographer these days, and I do not want to be one of those people. Now, I do not mean to ruffle any feathers with that last comment, so don't go getting your DSLR panties in a wad. There really, truly are some talented, self-made photographers, and I am lucky enough to know several of them, but there are also some really mediocre "photographers" out there who think that hitting the Sepia or Black & White button during editing does a good photograph make. There are few things in life that terrify me more than the prospect of being mediocre...at anything, let alone something I hold so dear.
Let me give you the backstory.
I loved to make things when I was growing up. When I say "things," that's exactly what I mean. Anything. Books. Posters. Jewelry. Banners. Clothes. Cardboard Barbie Houses. I mean, anything. I just loved creating things. Given this penchant, I took art in high school. I wasn't an especially talented painter, or drawer, or sculptor, but I didn't care because I was making things. Our school put on a student/faculty art show senior year, and I decided to enter some black and white photographs of scenes around my grandparents' farm that I had taken with a disposable Winn-Dixie camera. I didn't think they were anything special, but my Spanish teacher (God love her. The most wonderous, excited, and joyous person I've ever known) exclaimed, "Cristina! These are wonderful!!! You must do more photography! I mean it! You've got a talent!" I was grateful for her praise, but I just chalked it up to Senora being Senora.
That fall, I started school at UNC as a Pre-Med Psychology major (eye roll). That first year I was in Chemistry, Chem Lab, Calculus, Spanish IV, several Psychs, a horrifically boring history class in which a basketball player who sat next to me fell asleep every day, and a public speaking class that was used asenrichment punishment for kids who place out of freshman English. Every freshman was required to take a "freshman seminar." This was a class that was, not surprisingly, only for freshman but that was supposed to be taken strictly for enjoyment. As I perused the list of offerings, I kept going back to the listing for a photography class. "I don't know. I've never even used a 'real' camera before. I'm probably not even going to be good at it," I kept thinking (remember, I hate sucking at things). After debating for weeks, I finally just closed my eyes and clicked on the course during registration. I went to the first day of class with my grandfather's old Canon AE-1 in tow, armed with 35mm film and a pack of Agfa paper (an awesome product which is now, sadly, defunct), scared out of my mind. "I'm going to be so out of place with these art kids. They're going to be awesome, and I'm going to be awful." Thankfully, I was met with a room full of people who were just like me: total amateurs, some of my future best friends and roommates among them. Skip to our first critique. None of us presented anything earth shattering. We all took shots of scenes in and around campus as we tried our hand at framing, metering, film developing, and darkroom printing. But I'll never forget it. We were critiquing the boy whose work was tacked up next to mine, and our professor was saying that he needed to use a different filter when he was printing because his images were flat. "See. Look at this picture," he said. Oh. Oh gah. He's...he's pointing at one of my photos. "Look at the tonality. See how she's used all the available silver in the print? That's what you should be going for." Wait. What? Is that good? I think what he said was good. I will never, ever forget that moment. I was pleased as punch. You would've thought I'd just won the Pulitzer or something I was so secretly happy.
That semester I changed my major from Psych to a double in English and Art. Oh, and I left the Pre-Med track too, in case that wasn't already apparent from the lack of important looking initials in the space behind my name. :)
It did not take long to decide that my art concentration was to be photography. I loved it, and I was actually pretty decent at it. I took at least one photography class every year of college, but I did not always excel, though. I hit a creative wall during my sophomore year. I was obsessed with taking pictures of graveyards. I loved the history. I loved the quiet beauty. I loved the macabre element of it. My professor, on the other hand, did not love any of the above. After my second consecutive set of graveyard prints made its appearance at a critique, my professor took me aside and said, "You have GOT to stop taking pictures of graveyards. I mean, seriously. Enough already." I was a little hurt! "It's not that they're bad pictures. They're not. They're very well-composed shots, but...they're of graveyards. You can't make a graveyard your own." I'm not sure what you mean by that. "I mean, it's death. DEATH. How can you make death your own? Find something that's you. If you take one more graveyard picture, I'll fail you." And with that, my infatuation with tombstones came to an abrupt end. I thought and thought and thought and then I thought some more about what was "me." What else could I photograph that I could connect with in the way my prof wanted? I very much respected my professor, and I didn't want to let him down, so there was a lot riding on this next critique. I finally decided to photograph what I knew - my grandparents' farm. What could be more me?
At the next critique, I nervously pinned my prints to the wall - color prints, no less. I figured that if I was going to make a clean break from graveyards, I needed to explore a different medium as well. If Jeff hates these, I'm going to have a conniption, a legit mental breakdown. I had spent hours photographing, editing, printing, dodging and burning, getting the color just right on these photos. It was finally my turn to be critiqued. My professor just stood there with his head tilted, staring at a photo of my great-great-grandfather's corn crib for several moments. "It's so......................psychological," he finally said in an approving tone. YES. He GETS it. And for the rest of my undergraduate career, my body of work explored the death of the old south via landscape. I found me.
Some of the best memories I have of college took place in the darkroom at Hanes Art Center. I loved driving backroads in the styx counties surrounding Chapel Hill and Lincoln County (where my grandparents live) looking for interesting things to photograph. I would walk...WALK...from campus to Carrboro, the neighboring town, just to get my Kodak color paper for class. I would skip other classes just to go print photos. I can't tell you how much I loved it. And then I graduated.
I stayed in Chapel Hill for a year, and my professor hired me to do some darkroom printing for him for a few months, but I've never really photographed since. And I've never felt right about it. Photography was such a huge part of me for years, and then I just stopped. It's not like I did it on purpose. I was a darkroom photographer. A camera purist in the biggest way. I did not and do not have access to a darkroom. And I always felt like digital photography was cheating, anyway. Photoshop, Schmotoshop. I can edit the old-fashioned way. I suppose I can liken it to the way avid runners feel about using the treadmill or the elliptical. Or the way I felt when I finally broke down and got a Kindle. Oh, books, I still love you, but you're just not as convenient and accessible as you used to be. And so too I made peace with the fact that I will probably never again use the darkroom skills I so lovingly honed for so long in this era of pixels in which we live.
I requested and received a DSLR from my hubby for Christmas 2011. It sat unused in its box for six months. I think my hubs was hurt, but I didn't know how to explain it to him. I didn't know what I wanted to photograph, let alone how to work the freakin' camera. So many settings. So many buttons. I know how to meter. I know how aperture and film speed work. I know about ISO. I just don't know which button to push to adjust these things! ARGH. So I just didn't bother. I didn't want to disappoint myself. It just felt wrong. I felt like a freshman again, afraid of being terrible at something which I wanted so desperately to be good. I have slowly begun to embrace digital, though, as much as it pains the purist in me to say that. Lucy has had a huge part in this, and through my constant photographing of her, I've become acquainted with my camera and all its stupid buttons. And I've gotten the bug again. There is a yearning in me to have my camera continuously strapped to my person, in the fashion of the Christy of yore. So I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm kind of going to be a photographer.
I've wanted this for a really, really long time; I've just been afraid of it. I hear the exact same fears echoing in my head now that I heard so long ago. It's a bit crazy, really, but that's just how I am. Over-confident on the outside, self-depricating on the inside. I just don't want suddenly to find out I'm now terrible at something I love so dearly. I'm photographing a friend's one year old next weekend and another friend's newborn within the next two months...and I'm scared to death. I have a DSLR, but I don't have fancy lenses or flashes or even fancy editing software. It's just me and my camera, but that's all there was in my previous life as a photographer, so why is it so different now? It's not like I'm making my living this way. I don't even have to worry about getting a grade for it now!
Maybe this seems odd to some of you, but maybe some of you can identify with what I'm feeling. Have you ever been afraid of doing something you really, really want to do out of a fear of disappointing yourself? I suppose we'll find out soon enough if I'm still as good as I used to be! *Huff*
Let me give you the backstory.
I loved to make things when I was growing up. When I say "things," that's exactly what I mean. Anything. Books. Posters. Jewelry. Banners. Clothes. Cardboard Barbie Houses. I mean, anything. I just loved creating things. Given this penchant, I took art in high school. I wasn't an especially talented painter, or drawer, or sculptor, but I didn't care because I was making things. Our school put on a student/faculty art show senior year, and I decided to enter some black and white photographs of scenes around my grandparents' farm that I had taken with a disposable Winn-Dixie camera. I didn't think they were anything special, but my Spanish teacher (God love her. The most wonderous, excited, and joyous person I've ever known) exclaimed, "Cristina! These are wonderful!!! You must do more photography! I mean it! You've got a talent!" I was grateful for her praise, but I just chalked it up to Senora being Senora.
That fall, I started school at UNC as a Pre-Med Psychology major (eye roll). That first year I was in Chemistry, Chem Lab, Calculus, Spanish IV, several Psychs, a horrifically boring history class in which a basketball player who sat next to me fell asleep every day, and a public speaking class that was used as
That semester I changed my major from Psych to a double in English and Art. Oh, and I left the Pre-Med track too, in case that wasn't already apparent from the lack of important looking initials in the space behind my name. :)
It did not take long to decide that my art concentration was to be photography. I loved it, and I was actually pretty decent at it. I took at least one photography class every year of college, but I did not always excel, though. I hit a creative wall during my sophomore year. I was obsessed with taking pictures of graveyards. I loved the history. I loved the quiet beauty. I loved the macabre element of it. My professor, on the other hand, did not love any of the above. After my second consecutive set of graveyard prints made its appearance at a critique, my professor took me aside and said, "You have GOT to stop taking pictures of graveyards. I mean, seriously. Enough already." I was a little hurt! "It's not that they're bad pictures. They're not. They're very well-composed shots, but...they're of graveyards. You can't make a graveyard your own." I'm not sure what you mean by that. "I mean, it's death. DEATH. How can you make death your own? Find something that's you. If you take one more graveyard picture, I'll fail you." And with that, my infatuation with tombstones came to an abrupt end. I thought and thought and thought and then I thought some more about what was "me." What else could I photograph that I could connect with in the way my prof wanted? I very much respected my professor, and I didn't want to let him down, so there was a lot riding on this next critique. I finally decided to photograph what I knew - my grandparents' farm. What could be more me?
At the next critique, I nervously pinned my prints to the wall - color prints, no less. I figured that if I was going to make a clean break from graveyards, I needed to explore a different medium as well. If Jeff hates these, I'm going to have a conniption, a legit mental breakdown. I had spent hours photographing, editing, printing, dodging and burning, getting the color just right on these photos. It was finally my turn to be critiqued. My professor just stood there with his head tilted, staring at a photo of my great-great-grandfather's corn crib for several moments. "It's so......................psychological," he finally said in an approving tone. YES. He GETS it. And for the rest of my undergraduate career, my body of work explored the death of the old south via landscape. I found me.
Some of the best memories I have of college took place in the darkroom at Hanes Art Center. I loved driving backroads in the styx counties surrounding Chapel Hill and Lincoln County (where my grandparents live) looking for interesting things to photograph. I would walk...WALK...from campus to Carrboro, the neighboring town, just to get my Kodak color paper for class. I would skip other classes just to go print photos. I can't tell you how much I loved it. And then I graduated.
I stayed in Chapel Hill for a year, and my professor hired me to do some darkroom printing for him for a few months, but I've never really photographed since. And I've never felt right about it. Photography was such a huge part of me for years, and then I just stopped. It's not like I did it on purpose. I was a darkroom photographer. A camera purist in the biggest way. I did not and do not have access to a darkroom. And I always felt like digital photography was cheating, anyway. Photoshop, Schmotoshop. I can edit the old-fashioned way. I suppose I can liken it to the way avid runners feel about using the treadmill or the elliptical. Or the way I felt when I finally broke down and got a Kindle. Oh, books, I still love you, but you're just not as convenient and accessible as you used to be. And so too I made peace with the fact that I will probably never again use the darkroom skills I so lovingly honed for so long in this era of pixels in which we live.
I requested and received a DSLR from my hubby for Christmas 2011. It sat unused in its box for six months. I think my hubs was hurt, but I didn't know how to explain it to him. I didn't know what I wanted to photograph, let alone how to work the freakin' camera. So many settings. So many buttons. I know how to meter. I know how aperture and film speed work. I know about ISO. I just don't know which button to push to adjust these things! ARGH. So I just didn't bother. I didn't want to disappoint myself. It just felt wrong. I felt like a freshman again, afraid of being terrible at something which I wanted so desperately to be good. I have slowly begun to embrace digital, though, as much as it pains the purist in me to say that. Lucy has had a huge part in this, and through my constant photographing of her, I've become acquainted with my camera and all its stupid buttons. And I've gotten the bug again. There is a yearning in me to have my camera continuously strapped to my person, in the fashion of the Christy of yore. So I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm kind of going to be a photographer.
I've wanted this for a really, really long time; I've just been afraid of it. I hear the exact same fears echoing in my head now that I heard so long ago. It's a bit crazy, really, but that's just how I am. Over-confident on the outside, self-depricating on the inside. I just don't want suddenly to find out I'm now terrible at something I love so dearly. I'm photographing a friend's one year old next weekend and another friend's newborn within the next two months...and I'm scared to death. I have a DSLR, but I don't have fancy lenses or flashes or even fancy editing software. It's just me and my camera, but that's all there was in my previous life as a photographer, so why is it so different now? It's not like I'm making my living this way. I don't even have to worry about getting a grade for it now!
Maybe this seems odd to some of you, but maybe some of you can identify with what I'm feeling. Have you ever been afraid of doing something you really, really want to do out of a fear of disappointing yourself? I suppose we'll find out soon enough if I'm still as good as I used to be! *Huff*
YES. i know this feeling ALL too well. art problems. heavy sigh.
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