So I have totally enjoyed 2008 & getting the photography and networking really going. Think the best bit of that (networking darling) I did was with Fattalent. A platform for young UK talent into music, fashion, photography, the arts and generally just having a great time & promoting the skillz (yes with a Zee!) out there in the UK today. Mainly in London but ya know, we cannot discriminate. Anyway they have asked me to be their official photographer which is fab & I am working very hard with them to help promote their monthly live music & fashion event & also manage the Fat Blog. (http://www.fattalent.blogspot.com/)
Anyway in a bid to be cool I am going to try my damned hardest to move to London this year - so look@the cash situation, asses the reality that yes my standard of living is somewhat going to be different than being at home with the rentals and face facts that one day, I may actually have to start paying rent. Talking about cool this brings me to my next point and the real reason for this blurb.
Its tough finding what to write in these blogs you know, this is what got me thinking about my next post. I was all like 'What can I write, who cares anyway, do people really find this shi* interesting, what will be old school cool' then I thought, you know what does it matter! I am trying too hard I have decided; to please others. So instead of my photographs being for me, its about them. Whoever 'they' are. This in the commercial and corporate world is a good thing and gets me jobs but in fashion & art where I yearn to be, I think I am going to have to relax and go with the flow. I need to stop thinking about how many people I see that are my age or younger & appearing in some seriously cool places, but to name a couple - Susie Bubble @ http://stylebubble.typepad.com/ or Chloe Little from www.TheProblemKids.com. Now whether or not it should, I feel a sense of pressure to achieve. Then I thought back to an interview I did with another photographer called Linus Ricard (amazing sense of smell that guy!) and how we discussed what success meant to different people and what I considered to be succesful when I asked him the question. Then there is the article on www.dazeddigital.com written by a very wise 18 year old about teenagers becoming famous online. How through a fast paced, even faster growing network and community of young people this seems the 'hip' thing to do. Facebook, Flickr, Blogspot, MySpace are all online cities teaming with talent and people just wanting to get somewhere. All digital beauties tapping away at their keyboards looking for re
cognition or basically, Like this blog, just looking for somewhere to vent. I agree with this 18 year old anyway, life is tough in the world of bandwidths and pixels. I have decided that I myself must take action and I must decide what my success is. So stop thinking about 'fame' or being recognized by various magazines or viewers on the net but just making pictures that please me - Success / achievement - this is a personal statement which I and no one else must believe in.
Ok so now I have given myself a pep talk, wondered if there is anything scary about what I consider to be successful and sat here & written it down.....I am thinking....what is it to me? What is photography to me and when will I be happy? Am I happy that in a year of doing freelance I have a good client base & have taken far more commercial jobs on than I expected - well yes, who wouldn't be. But (Gee there is always a but!) its not that part of me I want to better, its the fashion part. So.....my mission is to look at myself, my life and what I want to achieve in terms of fashion photography and why (because I love it so much?!) and go from there. At Uni i just was a free thinker, I did it cos I damn well wanted to. Well rewind 4 years and I am going back there - all nighters, way too much red bull, living off a tenner a week (Urrrr ok that is unlikely) and aspiring to just get the crazy ideas in my head outside and communicate them using the manipulation and capture of light. I want to express these thoughts and feelings I have and just go with that, photograph that. So is that it, my looking and searching for 'the meaning of me' finished in these few short paragraphs? No surely not but it starts here! I am going to self psych myself and assess.
In order to add some visual gumf to this piece I have posted some pictures that I don't know why, but over the past couple of days I have found really interesting. I seem to be really intrigued by bondage and the totally consuming presence of sexual content in images. Which leads on to crazy things that people upload, honestly I swear I only log on to facebook to see pictures of my mates or mates, mates looking like idiots or stumbling into a skip after a heavy night out. Not that any of this is a new thing but its what occupies my head at the moment. Make what you will - its all about me now anyway!!!
