Last week supremely talented shooter and stand-up guy Tim Archibald wrote a deceptively succinct post about a condition that just about all freelancers know well, something that T.A. calls “The Silence.” I’ve certainly endured those (and just like a recession you don’t realize you are in/out of “the silence” until months later) and his post got me thinking about a series of conversations I’ve been having recently with newly freelanced friends and colleagues about being an island.
By island what I mean is that all too often freelancers feel disconnected and without a reference point nearby (especially those who have a newspaper/journalism background and are used to the the noise and community of a staff). The island happens most acutely for me during editing when I just can’t seem to figure out whether a picture is any good (or not), or even worse whether its really great or really shitty, which is actually a much larger problem in terms of moving forward and pushing your self/work. Whenever this happens I think about my work and JLP headquarters as an island, and occasionally it’s pretty quiet as well.
Lately I’ve added a newer sub-condition to the same island metaphor, spurred on by living in NYC (an actual island) where I’m way more inundated with new art and culture, gallery openings, studio parties, and other photographers always talking about the work and all of its problems. Surrounded by all of it (and especially right now in such a strange time for photography both in theory and economics) I feel my sense of my own work and methods lose a grip at times.
Last night when having beers with buddy Greg Ruffing (who is in town for meetings and a bit of fellowship) all of us (Jackanory, Harkin, and I) agreed about this greener-grass idea of photographers like Brian Ulrich and Alec Soth whose headquarters in the midwest (though of course Chicago barely counts) allows them to keep some sort of even keel or focus. That might be total shite, but for the point of this blog post it dovetails nicely.
Above is a picture of a red dot and a ladder which I’ve been staring at for most of the day trying to decide why I took it. I still don’t have an answer but also don’t want one. I saw it, I shot it, it’s there, and I like it. Here’s to big red dots that don’t mean anything.