i am done...perhaps premature...

BrianShaw said:
Before you do anything (sell equipment, buy equipment, divorce wife, burn house, etc) go see your doctor and get your medication adjusted! 😉

My medication is sold at the supermarket in the cold beer aisle.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
bmattock said:
My medication is sold at the supermarket in the cold beer aisle.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Bill,

sell all your gear if you have to, burn the house if you must, but don't ever stop posting to RFF! 😉
 
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bmattock said:
Ummm, good points. Argh. Stop making sense!
Bill, you probably do have too much equipment (you were closing in on a different camera for every day of the year as I remember) and that may be part of the problem. Using a different camera every day, you're not really familiar with any of them and it's going to be harder to get your vision on film.
Pick a camera and lens set you like, and sell off the rest. Use the money for beer and film. Keep the old photos around as incentive to improve and as a measure of that improvement.

cheers,
Peter
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sjc
Perhaps:

One must answer three questions:

What do I want my work to look like?


A thousand hearts breaking.

Quote:
What is my subject matter?


Myself, of course. Only better.

Quote:
What am I trying to communicate to the audience?


All is radio gaga?

Quote:
How about some objective critique before the FIRE!


Fire is more fun. But thanks!


Question #1 does not ask for a metaphrical answer. That's supposed to be a pragmatic technical consideration. Your answer would work better for question #3 than the one provided. Could you be more specific on question #2? What is it about yourself which might effectively be expressed pictorially?

Fear of failure does not have to be part of it.
 
back alley said:
when i joined here i was at the end of a downward spiral.
divorced (again) and having no creative energy and just living with a restlesness that was infuriating to me.

i sold my medium format gear, bought the bessa r and 35/75 combo and started to shoot again.
then, discovered the canon p and screw mount lenses and now into the m mount stuff again.

long story short - i think i understand - and it's a matter of time and energy invested that will bring you out of the doldrums.

joe

Joe i can indentify with that i've been in similar situation myself. A Creative Spirit is a mean mistress and rarely saited. I thought i was done a few weeks ago when i traded a lot of kit to streamline things to what i could carry at one time....but I have another two cameras on their way to me. One from a member here.


Bill: IMHO keep it all, drink more beer and take more pics 🙂
 
sjc said:
Question #1 does not ask for a metaphrical answer.

But suppose I want to make metaphorical photographs? I want to see what a thousand hearts breaking looks like. I want to photograph comfort and joy.

That's supposed to be a pragmatic technical consideration.

In that case, I have no answer. I don't know. Something else, I guess. Something that is not a landscape, an object, or a person. The things I perceive when I look at those things, not the things themselves. I want to see a poem locked in emulsion and given form.

Your answer would work better for question #3 than the one provided. Could you be more specific on question #2? What is it about yourself which might effectively be expressed pictorially?

All I know of the universe is what I know of myself. There is nothing that I perceive that is not within the boundaries of my own skull. All I can find is my own Ego and Love and Will. Love is the law, and Love under Will.

I can never be inside your head, you can never be inside mine. I don't know what it is like 'out there', I barely know what it is like 'in here'. Well, smelly and crowded, but besides that...

Fear of failure does not have to be part of it.

I don't fear failure, I fear the null value. Failure is something. When I say "I fear nothing," I mean that in the literal sense. I would embrace failure like the friend that it is. We'd do shooters together.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
SJC, Good questions, but you might be missing Bill's point (or rather, the point of Bill?). I don't think he is looking for advice here. More...holding court.
 
Bill: I wonder if any artist is ever satisfied with what he has done. FWIW, I think a critical attitude about one's own work is a prerequisite for greatness. But you're asking the right questions.
 
SJC, Good questions, but you might be missing Bill's point (or rather, the point of Bill?). I don't think he is looking for advice here. More...holding court.
The photos I take to feed my soul are terrible, and I want to smash everything to pieces and start over, only I don't know where to begin.

Just throwing it out there and feeding the resident Socrates to see what I can learn......................
 
gns said:
SJC, Good questions, but you might be missing Bill's point (or rather, the point of Bill?). I don't think he is looking for advice here. More...holding court.


hhhmmm...

come to think of it...i started this post about my busted up 40/2 summicron and how poorly i was feeling about it all...

but bill wouldn't do that to me, would he?

?
 
bmattock said:
Not more guts, more broke. Need cash, and I am coming to the conclusion that all my photography sucks big-time. Time to start over. Maybe songwriting...

Those digital IR images you posted a few weeks ago were awesome!

R.J.
 
RJBender said:
Those digital IR images you posted a few weeks ago were awesome!

R.J.

Thank you very much! I liked them too. But the ones my wife and friends disliked the most were the ones I liked the most, and I started really being attracted by something that may lead me on other paths, not pretty paths really. I am attracted and I fear it at the same time.

This was one of my favorites, and it made me realize that I'm moving towards something...else.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=25918

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
bmattock said:
Thank you very much! I liked them too. But the ones my wife and friends disliked the most were the ones I liked the most, and I started really being attracted by something that may lead me on other paths, not pretty paths really. I am attracted and I fear it at the same time.

This was one of my favorites, and it made me realize that I'm moving towards something...else.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=25918

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

The deserted farmhouse shots look surreal. I liked those the best. Be careful when walking around those old farmhouses. Brush can grow over an abandoned well and the boards covering the well will most likely be rotted.

R.J.
 
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