Torn Between Two Projects
April 29, 2017
Open photography projects are weird, at least for me. To those who know my work, you know that I do not have a certain style, nor a certain subject matter I photograph, nor specific medium used. In short, my photography is pretty much all over the place. I just love the freedom of photography. It’s unlike painting where an artist has a specialized medium and subject matter. In photography, ones you learn the basics, you can pretty much take photographs of any subject and bounce back any photographic medium.
And, that’s where the problem occurs to me—I take so much
photos of everything and I don’t know what subject matter I really want to
focus on. So, having a project to make a cohesive series is a dilemma for me.
This semester for my photo class, we must make a cohesive series of photographs
taken in a one month span. My initial project options were: street photography
(Chinatown), “lightplay”, and banal every day stuff. By the final week before
the final critic, I was torn between two projects: “Not Ignoring” (banal
everyday stuff) and “Resistance 2017” (weekend protests in Philadelphia for the
span of the project). I was conflicted between two projects that I’ve worked on
so hard—one more of a personal study, the other is more of a documentary. This
is not a new issue for me, I’ve been dealing with this for almost six years now. I
don’t know what I want to photograph; I just want to photos. I know it’s
important to have a personal voice in photography, but it’s easier said than
done.
By the final critic, I went with the “Not Ignoring” (the
personal study one). I think it’s okay but I’m still contemplating what if I
went with the protest photos. I personally liked both equally: one more
personal and the resistance photos have more depth and more human. My only
issue with the resistance series was I won’t be able to give justice to it if I
only present 5-14 photographs. Meanwhile, “Not Ignoring” seems to represent me (trying to look calm in midst of chaos lol).
6years into photography, and the more I learn and grow, the
more confuse I am with what I want to do.