Often I am afraid I am going to wake up one day and suddenly be incapable of taking a decent photograph. I know it’s an irrational fear because photography is intuitive. But it’s easy to fear something when you don’t fully understand the magic formula that makes it happen.
Grille, San Francisco, California, 2013
I recently started organizing the photographs I have shot these past few months into a new body of work, Everything: Transitory. There is something about the process of defining one’s work that is both educational and paralyzing.
Side to the Boot, San Francisco, California, 2013
Luckily, the effect is temporary.
The problem is in trying to define what one is about as a photographer. I recently went to a Photo Alliance lecture by Leo Rubinfien. He showed many photos typically classified as “street photography.” The photos were all very different from each-other in style and content. The point being, such a vast array of work couldn’t be so easily simplified as being one thing – street photography.
Just Stairs, San Francisco, California, 2013
Organizing and defining one’s photos is like trying to psychoanalyze your subconscious. What was it, dear Intuition, that you were trying to say? So I get Leo’s point. I want to say that I am a street photographer, because it will make it easier for people to grasp what it is I am about. But I also don’t quite think what I do is street photography either, because it is uniquely my own.
