‘define who you are.’
i went for a talk with Stefen Chow – a photographer i pretty much respect. he shared his experiences as a photographer and even though i have attended a couple of his previous talks, he always shares new learnings, new experiences with his audience. it has been about a year since i last attended his talk at the same venue at Vivocity.
time flies, really. there i was sitted, wondering about the days gone by. one thing that stefen shared who resonated with me was ‘to define who you are.’ it’s not easy, really. i am at this point in my life, defining what i really love doing in photography. over the past months, i have tried events, wedding portraits etc. and i don’t find myself enjoying either … when leon commented that i don’t like to be weighed down when we were discussing on relationships, i think it applies to many facets of my life. i just don’t like to be weighed down. it’s not a matter of avoiding responsibilities as such, to the contrary, i think i am too responsible for my own liking. it’s a matter of having that bit of independence and freedom to be fluid about things. i like to build my own boundaries and dictate my sense of boundaries when it comes to my own work. they could go as freely and they could be very much restrained. it all depends. see? fluidity. maybe that’s why i recently question (and at this point, try to overcome) my fear of commitment when it comes to relationships… (of course that’s a different issue altogether, but my perspectives in life plays a part.) somehow it’s hard to connect the thought of having to account to someone my whereabouts and what i have had for lunch or who i am hanging out with (trust me, it scares me to death sometimes, not that i deliberately hide but more so because i wonder why the intense need to know every aspect of someone else…) i don’t think i have ever probed about anyone’s life because that should be the way…privacy. social media makes all these worse, especially when you take it seriously. facebook statuses are really only about fun and rubbish. hehe. i wonder if anyone takes my blog seriously.. when it’s just input/output on a daily as-i-like-it of (ir)relevant stuff my mind goes through. okay i digress.
back to photography.
i think wedding portraits are pointless. period. they are redundant the moment they are taken. because everything in a wedding portrait is a farce. blame me for being cynical… the couple is clad in wedding attire, smile at each other, start to pose etc.. is love so overt? keke. i still think love is what it is supposed to be – personal and only the other party will know when there is love (either deluded or through feeling it). love is not expressed through wedding portraits, i don’t buy that. so out. events? i am not cut out for events. events bore me to death… so much so i get so restless witnessing events. so out.
portraitures – yes i love. because they are so intimate they sometimes force me to try to know a person in a span of 30minutes just to get a shot taken. the amazing thing is in the span of 30minutess, whatever preconceptions you have of someone based on first impressions get much more varied. either they are wrong, or they are uncannly real, or they are just flat. flat like you wonder if they have a life. keke. portraitures are interesting but i am not interested at all in ‘beauty shots’ i.e. just making the person look good, smile and click … i want to bring out their personalities, their characters and that means my vision of them are sometimes not typical (which alot of people are reluctant to experiment in terms of poses). ALOT of people just want to look nice, pretty and … well, flat. i worry. where’s you, and your soul? i want to ask.
stefen shared many of his personal projects and they are all very interesting… you could see his excitement as he went through each of them.. that’s the passion i look for within myself. i need that. at some point, i am not sure of making this whole photography into a business for myself. perhaps i am happy just coming with my own personal projects. i have been struggling with this notion for the past few but many weeks and i think i found a certain answer today through stefan’s talk. am i keen about making money through photography? not really. am i excited about snapping photos, uploading them to flickr? maybe in the past but not really now. am i excited about loads of traffic onto my site? not really. am i excited about taking my visions for a project to my good friends? YES, VERY. am i excited about being part of the creative efforts put forth by my friends? YES VERY. am i excited about concepts visiting for my friends’ and my own projects? VERY MUCH SO. so that says it all. it’s a very nice relevation about myself, something that i have delayed doing so for a while. i think for now, i should venture down this path, to see photography in a progressive way. perhaps my relationship with photography has inched abit. i am glad for this because it means i haven’t been too stagnant. new goalposts are always fun.
thank you stefen, those words mean the world to me. that is ‘define who you are.’ along some lines, i do think i could resonate with your experiences (never mind we don’t like events, weddings.. ) and i think it’s very true that we all have to ‘stick to our guns’, ‘understand ourselves first’ in order to pursue and continue by the very passion we live for.
