it Will All Be over in Four (long) weeks

I've been studying principles of design and composition for over three years now. I understand elements of repetition, rhythm, contrast, balance, line quality and color. I get it. I've taken drawing, oil painting, watercolor, and sculpture, and I've done well in all of them. I'm a good artist. I'm not the best artist, and I may not even be a great artist, but I don't suck.

I suck at Photography. There's no simpler way to put it. We're 3/4 through the semester and I've actually gotten worse since we started in August.

I've never cared for photography anyway. But the class is required so I thought, "Eh, at least this way I can learn to appreciate it even if I don't pursue it any further." And at first that's exactly what happened: I learned to appreciate the work that goes into a good photograph and what qualifies it as "art." That lasted for about...oh, I'd say...two days.

It's like everything I've ever learned, and everything that any other art teacher has praised me for, is all of the sudden wrong. Just wrong. Example: we looked at two pictures of the same subject, one with a filter and one without. I thought the one on the right was the best one because the background was subdued and didn't compete with the foreground. This is an elementary concept that must be taken into account when creating any composition.

Except it's wrong.

The one on the left was better. The background got confusing with the foreground, but the "tonality" was better so apparently that makes it a good photograph.

What. The. Fetch!

This happens consistently. I've stopped raising my hand to voice my ignorant opinions and ceased all futile attempts to understand the babbling jargon and strange terminology. My new strategy is to lie low and just get through this class with a passing grade. The quicker we get to December, the quicker this will be over.

This has never been my attitude towards school. I love school. I've loved all my classes, especially art classes. But I think Photography has broken me. Twice a week when I walk out of that class I have to build myself back up, mentally repeating, "I'm a good artist, I'm a good artist, I suck at photography, but I'm a good artist..." It's discouraging.

It would be one thing if my problem were in the developing or printing stages. That would be understandable. There are a lot of steps and a lot of places where you could screw yourself over, but it would be a simple matter of correction and making a conscientious effort to be more thorough next time.

But no. I've got the developing and printing down pat.

I'm just a terrible photographer.

It's not that I can't find anything worth photographing in the natural world. I get inspired by small things all around me when I'm walking around outside or through a building...wherever. It could be the angle of two metal beams from a certain vantage point, or the color of leaves under frost, or the vibrant color of a rooftop or brick wall in the sunset, or the tenacity of a solitary green leaf in the midst of a graveyard of crunchy brown and rust-orange. It's not that I don't see the beauty around me. It's that I can't capture that moment, those emotions, in a black and white photo. As soon as my finger clicks the shutter release, the image loses its vibrancy and beauty, and becomes flat, gray, and unremarkable.

If I can paint it or draw it I can use loose lines to imply movement or mood, and use color to play on your imagination...I can make you see it the way I saw it and feel what I felt.

With a camera, all I can show you is what's there. And what's there is not all that I want to show you. There was an element of imagination that went on only in my head that made the experience worth having, and there's no way to get the sparks of delight from my mind onto the photo negative.

My professor keeps saying that the camera is a limitless medium, but I can't help feeling incredibly limited.


(this is not to discount photography as an art form, by any means. there are people who love taking pictures and are good at it, and i admire them for that talent. i'm only saying that it's not for me and hopefully i've supplied you with reasoning that can allow you to empathize with my plight)