procrastinatory
Of or pertaining to procrastination; dilatory.
the other day i just wasn't feeling it in the studio. staring at two 46"x46" pieces of duralar on my wall. one blank. one started. no idea what to do next.
so i shot polaroids. a whole pack. because sometimes when i'm feeling stuck - or blue - or confused if i try and do something creative, but more fun and spontaneous i can crack that secret code. or sometimes not. but polaroids always make me feel better.
for some reason lately i've been turning the camera on myself a lot. i've been trying to figure out what that is since i tend to DETEST photos of myself. here's what i've come up with::
1. i'm getting older and want to document what i look like before i don't look like "myself"
2. once you have a child you realize that you sort of become - well - irrelevant. and i don't mean this in a negative way - just in that i no longer see myself as myself first. it's almost like i become this reflection - or a reflector.
3. when i'm knee deep in mental "stuff" the documentor in me thinks it's good to record this. or maybe it's the fact that if i take pictures of me -or try to honestly record something i'll be able to remove myself from the situation a bit. perhaps this is in the hopes of thinking more clearly - or maybe i'm hoping i'll see something in the photo in me that i need to recognize and amplify. [is this getting too philosophical?]
can i just say that you guys who have commented on my 7 year blog-aversary post are the nicest people ever. i want to send everyone something. THANK YOU for taking a moment to tell me why you come here. i'm all farklempt .
there's still time to enter the GiVeAwAy. i'll choose a winner monday night....
the other day i just wasn't feeling it in the studio. staring at two 46"x46" pieces of duralar on my wall. one blank. one started. no idea what to do next.
so i shot polaroids. a whole pack. because sometimes when i'm feeling stuck - or blue - or confused if i try and do something creative, but more fun and spontaneous i can crack that secret code. or sometimes not. but polaroids always make me feel better.
for some reason lately i've been turning the camera on myself a lot. i've been trying to figure out what that is since i tend to DETEST photos of myself. here's what i've come up with::
1. i'm getting older and want to document what i look like before i don't look like "myself"
2. once you have a child you realize that you sort of become - well - irrelevant. and i don't mean this in a negative way - just in that i no longer see myself as myself first. it's almost like i become this reflection - or a reflector.
3. when i'm knee deep in mental "stuff" the documentor in me thinks it's good to record this. or maybe it's the fact that if i take pictures of me -or try to honestly record something i'll be able to remove myself from the situation a bit. perhaps this is in the hopes of thinking more clearly - or maybe i'm hoping i'll see something in the photo in me that i need to recognize and amplify. [is this getting too philosophical?]
can i just say that you guys who have commented on my 7 year blog-aversary post are the nicest people ever. i want to send everyone something. THANK YOU for taking a moment to tell me why you come here. i'm all farklempt .
there's still time to enter the GiVeAwAy. i'll choose a winner monday night....
Comments
But ALSO, don't you have a sense of this time with your daughter as being something sort-of historical - meaning, this is the time of her life that she is walking through half-aware, just by virtue of being a kid, and the two of you are sharing the time, but she doesn't have the ability to see you through adult eyes, obviously, so like many of us, she will probably wonder about this time later, think about her own childhood, about what it was like to hang out with you, and be your kid, and that just makes me love the idea of there being photos of you from this time for her. Don't know if that makes sense, though I know what I mean. :-)
Keep taking photos of yourself if you feel like it! You are the one subject who is always there. I went through a phase of taking a lot of self-portraits, and it was such a good exercise in looking, those little photos of, like, my ear, or eyeball, or whatever, and at the end of it I felt like I had a better idea of how I wanted to photograph others.
Also, there's something about being the mom to a little one who can't yet see you through grown-up eyes that seems to me to demand picture-taking. I LOVE seeing photos of my mom as she was when I was a child, and didn't really know how to look at her yet. Those photos are really comforting and interesting and feel important to me. It's like a present from our shared past.
Oh those stuck days in the studio, I can relate today! I hate pics of myself as well. I just realized putting together a father's day slideshow of our daughter and myself that I have way too few of me. I vow to take more too, at least for my daughter to have one day to remember me.
This is a little off the subject, but I was listening to an older episode of Radiolab and the topic turned to mirrors. I've always wondered why I don't quite like myself in pictures, as if this person was a stand-in for the me I see in the mirror, the person I think I know. Photographed me is close, but not quite right. Maybe it's because she's reduced to two-dimensions, or is governed by camera lens or a particular slant of light. But according to the radio program, the self we see in the mirror is the reverse of what everyone else sees, and just the small act of flipping our image alters our faces. That must be true, since we're all assymetrical, and sensitive to very small changes in the faces we see. I know mirror girl, to me, I am mirror girl. Flip her over, and she's different, even just a little bit. For me, that little bit seems to be enough to make me uncomfortable. I wonder if self-portraits are a way to understand ourselves as the rest of the world knows us, with all that that suggests...
I love visiting here- why? There's always 'food for thought', plus I love your honesty and playfulness-they just make your intelligence and creativity so much more exciting to share!
Take those pictures or just follow where your guts lead- they are doing a great job so far-
Have a good one!
XX