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Vision. Just one more.
May 1st, 2009
Long-time lurker, Anita, dropped a nice comment into Monday’s post. I dropped an email into her inbox. You know, quid pro quo, and all that. Anyways I said something and as my fingers were typing it I realized it was something I needed to say to everyone.
I switched highschools at the end of Grade 12 so I could finish up the equivalent of Ontario’s old Grade 13 thing in one semester instead of a whole year. As a result I wasn’t around to get one of those “Most Likely To…” things in the yearbook. But if I had, it woulda been “Most Likely to Write A Manifesto.” I think every church in Canada oughta be happy I didn’t end up in its pulpit, I’d have preached them to death….
But that’s not what I wanted to send you into the weekend with. All this talk about vision, then caveats and clarifications about my talk about vision. Now an addendum to my clarification. Make it stop! (Wow, 3 paragraphs to get to the point, I do ramble, don’t I?)
This vision stuff is important. But just because you haven’t got a handle on it, find it frustrating, and in general start to wonder why you keep coming back for more, doesn’t mean you don’t have vision. You do. And just because you find it difficult to recognize that vision doesn’t mean you can’t express it. You can. Discovering and expressing your vision is what photography is all about, but vision is bigger than you and I. Unless you intentionally supress it (what kind of sicko are you?), it’ll find a way out. It will. Keep at it, and if this vision stuff gets too much, give it a rest for a couple days. Just go shoot for the love of it. I promise, it’ll ooze out. Over-thinking this stuff can kill the passion and photography without passion might just be worse than photography without vision. Or they might be the same thing…
Have a great weekend y’all. Go shoot something you love. 
If it is the Anita that I’m thinking about, a long time visitor to my blog, she does know how to ask questions that spawn entire posts!
Great addition to your thoughts, David.
I might not have all the vision part down yet, but the passion and love is there in spades. Your overthinking advice is definitely at the forefront for me. Sometimes, I visualize the picture, but not knowing all the camera stuff causes the photo to not quite met expecations.
But, I will be shooting today, and taking lots of pictures. With luck, a few will be just want I was looking for, but regardless, it will be fun.
Whew. I am breathing easier after these last couple of posts.
I didn’t think you had any room for improvement after “The Big Q”, but you rambled your way smack to the heart of it for me. If all this isn’t in your book—and I suspect that writing the book is what got you to point of being able to clear this up, you have at least one more book to write, don’t you? And, I need to start clearing space on a bookshelf.
When I teach my writing students, I talk the same way about theme. I sort of define theme as ‘your own personal point of view about this story.’ And, I say, whether you can articulate what your theme is, it will come out in your writing whether you want it to or not, you can’t suppress it. Nor should you. And that’s a good thing, because that point of view is what makes your work unique.
Vision, as you put it, is something I leave for the critics and intellectuals to find in my work. I just shoot what my gut tells me is right. When the stuff I shoot is on the wall of a gallery or in a book, I listen to all the pundits talk about my ‘vision’, and that’s how I found out what it is.
Thanks for the encouragement. Often times I find my vision uncontested, but my methods, mediums, and talents for expression are a knotted mess.
I “want” my vision to involve a lens. Maybe it’s time to check my wants.
-SC
David, the posts that you’ve written this week are what keeps me coming back for more. All food for thought, all excellently written, all motivation to just get out there and do it. I’ve been struggling along thinking I have no vision and feeling like I don’t have anything to say. But, I still manage to get out there every day and do a little shooting. I post a photo everyday and at the end of the month I do a mosaic/review of each image and in compiling this month’s mosaic and looking at last month’s, I noticed a few things. I love color – not soft color or muted color, but bold pops of color. I love flowers (and trees, too) and things that are rusty, but most of all I love detail. I’m a big picture kind of person, but it is the details that thrill me. How that translates to vision I’m not sure, but I’ll figure it out. Eventually.
Honestly I don’t know what is my vision is (right now atleast)…I don’t know what my love is…landscape, people or something else…but the reason i come back to this blog is because it just acts as a reminder to keep on looking for it….that makes ur posts so special…
Now back to shooting something which I am thinking is what i like doing….portraits…let’s see