Today I wanted to write a little bit about my hiatus from this blog. It’s not that I don’t like blogging or that I don’t want to put my work into the digital world, I do. It’s just that the amount of effort needed to create a good weekly blog post is, well, impossible. Maybe I shouldn’t say impossible but there’s only so many interesting things that can be said about one’s own work before you just get into the dreadfully boring habit of listing the things that make up each photograph. I don’t think that’s a very entertaining way for you the reader to be spending your time. After a while I found myself putting less and less effort into each blog post, I was just creating one each week for the sake of pleasing the algorithm that says if you don’t post consistently then your work won’t be seen by everyone. As someone that cherishes their time I don’t want to put work out there that I myself wouldn’t enjoy, so when it got to the ninth installment of me talking about my “progression” as if it had any real relevance to anyone is when I realized that I may not doing this for the right reasons. I had a wonderful idea in my head that after a few years I’ll be able to be create some beautifully written blog posts if just keep on creating. Of course I believe that consistent practice is the only way to get better at something, it’s just that after so long I no longer felt the need to be constantly creating crap articles just for the sake of it. There was so many great sounding ideas in my head all fighting for dominance, so many plans that I want to see through, eventually I realized I’m only one person and something needs to give. Most of my time is now spent working on long term projects.
Looking back I was creating content not because I liked what I was making, but because I committed myself to pleasing an algorithm. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s probably the only way to get more digital readers.The problem is that I’ve been increasingly drawn away from digital space and back into physical space. I like books, not jpegs. I want my photographs to exist in the real world, as printed objects. The whole structure around the digital viewing of photographs makes for a small amount of time analyzing, and I prefer to look at a photograph and really study it.
Another related note is that I value the friends close to me more than my purely digital friends. I think my artistic practice should apply the same philosophy. Not to say that there isn’t a lot of value to be had in creating a digital home for your work, it’s just that I’m at a point in my life where I want to focus on being in galleries rather than websites.
Trying to become internet famous has its advantages, and if that’s what you want to do then more power to you. But thinking about all the work that needs to go into that goal is a daunting task, and I’d rather work on being a professional photographer than a professional blogger.
I still have the stubbornness to say that I’ll never quit this blog, it’s just that from now on I only want to post when I feel like it. If you have the patience to stick with my erratic schedule and still read on, then you’re probably my parents and in that case I love you mom and dad.
Signing off,
-Jeremy
We do enjoy all your work!