If you fall down the various rabbit holes of online photography forums, you‘re likely to get ulcers or develop anger management issues. Many forum contributors have very strict rules and definitions about the rights and wrongs of photography and they type out their resolute assertions in the endlessly scrollable online debates. But the thing is, aside from photojournalism and other documentary practices that strive to present truth, there are no rules in photography. It’s an art, a medium, a process whose countless practitioners show that it can be explored with all manner of tools and pushed any which way. And if you work at it, you may just end up with something worthwhile.
Ok, but my photography doesn’t always fit into neat, coherent projects, so maybe I need to roll freeform around this world, unfettered, able to photograph whatever and whenever: the sky, my feet, the coffee in my cup, the flowers I just noticed, my friends and lovers, and, because it’s all my life, surely it will make sense? Perhaps. Sometimes that works, sometimes it’s indulgent, but really it’s your choice, because you are also free to not make ‘sense’.
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And hopefully I will carry on, and develop it, because it is worthwhile. Carry on because it matters when other things don’t seem to matter so much: the money job, the editorial assignment, the fashion shoot. Then one day it will be complete enough to believe it is finished. Made. Existing. Done. And in its own way: a contribution, and all that effort and frustration and time and money will fall away. It was worth it, because it is something real, that didn’t exist before you made it exist: a sentient work of art and power and sensitivity, that speaks of this world and your fellow human beings place within it. Isn’t that beautiful?
British photographer Paul Graham penned these thoughts for the graduating students of the Yale (MFA) Photography program in 2009, in a brief but illuminating essay, Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult.
These pictures: more digital polaroid explorations; local street signage and other found graphic elements framed to create still life compositions; character studies of a neighborhood.
In the weeks since, my explorations have found a focus and taken shape and I’ve been able to develop a photographic series, one I expect will be organic and episodic in nature as it evolves.
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