With the beginning of a new year most people set about making resolutions for the coming year. We here at 2 Galleries – 4 Seasons Photography tend to do things a little differently. Here I’m talking about realisations instead of resolutions. Let’s face it, by about now all New Year’s resolutions tend to have gone out the window as we settle back to our usual routines.
With a recent health scare I spent the Summer holiday period thinking, and thinking hard. I came to the realization that while most of my life was adequately organized and sorted should my demise come earlier than I wanted, my photography and all the hard work I put into it was a weak or lacking, consideration.
Living with an adorable, yet completely computer illiterate partner, what was to become of my images and all the original files? How often do hard drives of images get overlooked with the passing of a photographer – I suspect more often than should occur. I believe loved ones are more likely to sit down and take time to absorb your images when they are presented in a physically printed form than if they are found on a hard drive or in a digital form. Digital images require more of an effort to view – they require the location of a device and then an appropriate “viewing” program or platform. A hardcopy of an image whether as a print or a collection of prints in a book or album can be easily picked up, pondered over, put down and then picked up again at a whim.
In the past I have arranged various series of images together in an artful manner - whether this was using hand made books previously purchased or other materials, of which I am proud. These have been as personal, on-off projects which currently reside in my study. This time I want to do something a little more professional, yet still reflecting my personal style and incorporating all my hard captured and compiled images.
For this reason, I have decided to slowly put together a coffee table book of my work. This is going to be quite a challenge (which I personally love) as the two genres of photography I love (composite fine art imagery and landscape photography) are at opposing ends of the photographic spectrum. How on earth am I going to blend these into one book?
The more I have considered this question the more I agree with you, it is something we should all consider. There are a lot of reasons not to, the effort it takes versus spending the same time capturing or creating the next great image. Expense is another negative. But I suspect the biggest negative is buried in our own insecurities, why would anyone else want to look at it? We are the poorest judge of our own work because we know all the flaws, the mistakes and the possibilities we missed. Yet to be noticed in this photographic world we need to put our work out there, and the weirdest sentence I can think of... We need to promote ourselves!…
We too havew the same dilemma of "what will happen to our images?", in the event something happens to us. They are uniquely personal and loved by each of us, but we doubt our children will be interested in them in any way, shape or form.
I hope your health scare is nothing that is going to impede your creativity and work in the coming year.
Your coffee table book will be an amazing piece of work, I'm sure. Combining the two genres will not be easy, but maybe you can divide it into chapters with an unobtrusive theme running through so you can combine both genres, but within a chapter? Good luck and we'll look forward to seeing yo…