Painting with lenses
What do you know, I did think of something worth writing about…
Tonight I’m teaching my last art class of the twelve-week session. They really want me to do another round, but I’m not going to. Not now at least. I really enjoyed it and everyone seemed to get a lot out of the experience, but it’s time to hang up my hat for now. For one thing, the new semester at DePaul has started up, and I’m taking more than double the credits I took last semester. The real reason though, is that I’m still just not motivated to make paintings right now, and so I don’t have much juice to pass along.
I want to be painting, and I think I could even be really good at it, but I’m simply not driven to do at this point in time. I have tons of resistance around getting down to doing it, even though I always enjoy it when I do. (I do think some of those blocks will become unplugged as we continue through the Artist’s Way course. Hey, that’s something else I need to blog about some time soon!) I just have this massive fear of failure that paralyzes me there.
On the other hand, I have no resistance whatsoever related to my photography. I love shooting photos, and I don’t think twice about shooting something beautiful when I see it. So, for now that’s what I’m going to focus on doing. If I want to paint, I’ll paint, but I’m not going to make it something I ’should be doing’ anymore.
I love the immediacy of photography. I think it’s particularly good for an ADD brain like mine- it’s so instantaneous and stimulating that it’s virtually distraction-proof. I love the way I can play with light and enhance reality too. With a camera in hand, my senses are heightened. Walking around the city becomes a moving meditation on form and light and the narrative unfolding around me. And you get the most amazing little miracles sometimes- beautiful, delicate accidents of life that are just frozen in time.
So, like I said, I dig it. I’m going to try to be more intentional about it, and try to make some money doing it as well.
In support of these photographic aspirations, when we’re back in Nashville, I’ll be picking up a brand, spanking new Nikon D40 that I just ordered. I am SO stoked. I took my friend’s D70 for a spin last week and it rocked my world. SLRs have gotten so much more user friendly with the advent of digital, once again removing resistance from the process of making good art. Excellent. I took some great photos with it that I will be posting soon. (In the mean time you can see some of the fun shots I took in Fukuoka with my great little Canon SD550 on our Photos page.)
I’m off for now. Gotta catch the train in time to make it to art class…
-A.
