{personal} – self portrait friday #2 (a little early)

On a good day, I like to consider myself an artist.

This comes with a whole set of unique problems that I have still yet to accept. 

An artist likes to doubt themselves and at the slightest notion will deem a piece of work unacceptable. An artist likes to berate themselves until they don’t even believe they’re an artist at all.

 This past month has been difficult for my work and I. I love portraiture because every subject is different and therefore, in essence, every shoot is different. But recently I’ve conjured this idea that I am stuck in a rut. I have convinced myself that I am at a standstill and am not producing good enough work. I spend the majority of my days in front of a computer post-processing and while I love being hands-on with my work from the first click of the shutter to the burning of the CD — my butt is a little tired of this chair. And on these last few days, I have been scouring through thousands of images trying to find the ones to put up on my new website and cannot stop myself from thinking: “These are crap.”. I’ve spent endless time looking at expensive equipment that I dream of owning and expensive branding and website design firms that I wish I could afford. And in the middle of my winter blues, I began to truly believe that these things were what I was missing. That the lack of dough in my bank account was the reason for my failure.

What utter crock.

My work never has and never will rely on the equipment it was created on. To be honest with you I don’t even care about RAW vs. JPEG or the number of megapixels or how fast my card reader can upload my images. Today I was reminded that I started taking pictures because I liked capturing people. I am fascinated with REAL expressions, REAL emotions, REAL people and in order to create that, I have to be real with myself. I am the kind of artist who starts doubting herself when she doesn’t get comments on a blog post. I am the kind of artist who would rather trespass on private property with a client than take pictures of someone who has no sense of adventure in their soul. I am the kind of artist who has good days and bad days but will fight her way out of it by taking a picture…and then taking another…and another until it passes.

I hereby promise you that I will never rely on how expensive or inexpensive my equipment is. And who needs an expensive branding firm when I already put a “Mc” in front of everything? That’s solid branding right there ; )

I also promise you that I will not be like the other photographers you’re used to seeing. This winter, I strive to be different.

And if you just read through all of that whining? I love you. No, really. I do. Sometimes I get a little upset with you, McReader, because I want you to comment more so I can selfishly be reaffirmed. But today I was reminded that the importance is not in how many comments a blog post gets — the importance is in the fact you, McReader, keep coming back every week. Some of you every day. That’s enough love to inspire me for decades.