I’m not sure if all creative people struggle with this, I suspect not, but sometimes I have a difficult time taking myself seriously. As seriously as maybe I should.
I really like taking pictures. I like being in the moment, doing it. I like exploring it, I like looking at the pictures. I don’t like all the other stuff.
– Nina Berman
{ 11 comments }
That’s me !!
AMEN to that !
great to hear, but hard to fully believe given the seriousness of nina’s photographs and the heights she’s scaled showing them.
ok, nevermind, i fully believe it — she said it.
better, i think, than the creatives who take themselves wayyyy too seriously.
She’s right.
I have never had that “problem”, and it’s not something that’s ever come up when I’ve spoken to other creatives.
It just seems like we sometimes get into a groove and it become unconscious or subconscious takes over and we think with out thinking so to speak.
I shot a mini body of work some years ago in an old historic wool shed with a shearing gang. It was the set of MTV reality show.
Walking in everything just fell into place and the images have made me a gold mine.
It is so interesting the way our creative minds work. http://www.clc.co.nz
I think it’s great to hear Nina say this. I think a lot of creatives feel this way at some point or another. Sometimes (in all jobs) you have to live in the valleys: marketing, talks, rewriting bios, etc; waiting, trying, doing what you can to get back to the top of the mountain again where the view is clearest (the excitement of pre-production, booking travel, living in the moment of photographing, sharing those images with others to add a little something extra to life). I remember Nina presenting her work at a POYi in LA some years ago of really young children picking up + holding machine guns at a Marine’s recruiting event ; they were some of the most arresting images I have seen. Those are the mountain-tops where clear vision is shared with others and we should all be thankful Nina was seriously ‘there’.
I agree, doing all the Photo Shop work and retouching isn’t the most enjoyable part of the photo shoot.
I agree with everything above. But I have a quick question, by not taking yourself too seriously do your emotional state at the time effect your work? I mean if you are really in the moment does your pictures turn out better?
Regards,
Carl from T.O.
Better late than never posting a comment :) I can completely relate to Nina’s comment. But…when I am shooting, there is a transformation into a different sense of self – immersed in the moment. And…it seems when we clear our minds, the best images emerge.
@Christine,
You’re so right. I love that feeling of immersion. The other stuff… Not so much!
The book Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking is pretty cool about all this stuff.
Comments on this entry are closed.