"I was young once, and I said, That's beautiful and I want that. Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great -- well, that's absolutely torturous."
Being good at something is not the same as being great. Perhaps that's the last great struggle in life. Malcolm Gladwell has talked about how you can get good at almost anything with a few years of intense study. Other will say that might be true, but it takes the rest of your life to become great at it.
The quote above is by Philip Seymore Hoffman from a long, and in my opinion, fascinating article in this week's New York Times Magazine. Most of his insights are spot on. If you haven't read the whole thing yet, you should. Here's a link, so go do that and come back. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/magazine/21hoffman-t.html?pagewanted=1
Even just striving for greatness, whether or not you ever get there, takes a lot of work. Sure there are the usual crop of phenoms and just plain lucky bastards, but in the end it involves hard work and a lot of hitting your head against a wall until you find where the doors are. And there will always be others that are better or more successful than you. I'm fine with that (most of the time), as long as I still enjoy the work I do and make progress.
As a photographer, I'm Good, but I'm not Great. There may be those among you who plainly disagree with me on this on both sides, but that's ok. I've come to the realization that there will always be a chunk of people who don't like my work no matter how good I do or don't get. That's part of being alive I guess. But I've spent a lot of time lately looking at where I am and in what direction I'm going. I know I don't want to just work for the paycheck, and I know I don't want to do the same thing over and over again. I do want to make work that lasts, and I want to feel like I've used my life well in the end.
I got a larger wide-gamut monitor last week and have been digging back through my portfolio while getting used to it. And I've found my work to be crude and painfully lacking refinement. That's ok though, I'm not flagellating myself for the fun of it, I'm just being self constructively critical. I go through cycles as my pendulum swings between "Hey, that's not half bad, I'm actually getting a hang of this" and "My God, I actually sent that image to a magazine!?" Right now, I'm on the later, but as my friend Tom said last week, it's those times when you usually have a burst of creativity. Let it come.
Yes, let it come, get going.
I just read the saying, that artists try to fight the imbalance of the conscious with the unconscious. Its like the Thesis and the Antitheses that creats the Synthesis. So I think the first step to become great is when we allow conciouse knowing of good to mix with our maybe even oposing unconsciousnes, to come to new conclusions... If we we can see that synthesis in an artpiece it probably will strike us as great... I personally love the book "Free Play" by Stephen Nachmanovitch, but probably not new to you.
Um is Phillip Seymour Hoffman your new best friend or what? I was laughing out loud reading that article. You must have been separated at birth or something.
"As a photographer, I'm Good, but I'm not Great."
Pffft. I subscribe to one photographer's blog, and that'd be yours. You inspire me all the time. Keep it going.
Also, merry Christmas, Bill!
I find it inspiring that top-notch photographers like you are always striving to be better and go through periods of doubt. The key is to never step improving. Keep up the good work.