Snapper

    Of all the things I like to do artistically I think photography is the one I am most self conscious about. I mean, writing, it is what it is. I have been writing since I was a teenager and while you never like it when people dislike what you are doing, you also have to come to terms with the fact that you do what you do as a writer and all you can do is try to become a more effective writer and let people think what they will. With painting I pretty much got the worst I will get this year when people told me I painted like a child. Now, while my style may be child like I think to call what I do childish is silly. Again, you have to accept that you do what you do and just work on getting better at it. I am just not interested in painting things that don’t make me smile. See, I can accept the limitations of my writing and painting but that’s because I have been putting both out into the world for a bit of time now, with photography, it’s still raw. Still new.

   The funny thing is that I have been taking pictures for pleasure for years now. five years at least. I am on my third digital camera and have gotten better over the years but am still finding my ‘voice’. Still finding how to do it. I showed my photography publicly for the first time this past Friday and it was pretty scary. I have posted stuff on here or online in general for years but there’s a difference. One is that I don’t really get a lot of traffic, especially random traffic, on this site, so only a few people are ever seeing it. It is also different to have someone in front of you and know they can just verbally vomit on something you have poured your heart into. It’s rough. Rough but fun.

   It really is fun to get your work out there. I will never be a full time artist. I don’t have the time or talent to hope for that, but I like to show the things I work on. Selling is fun, but sometimes it’s more valuable to show and not have to worry about the money of it all. And it’s fun to get the feedback. Generally people seemed to dig my stuff. Like my paintings I have to find a better way to display, but it was nice to get positive feedback. And even more fun to know that I freaked out a couple people with my pics that had fake blood in them. Mwahaha. Hilarious. Funny because that means they were effective, and that’s a good thing.

   I won’t ever go down as a great photographer, and when you know as many really good ones as I do it gets intimidating to try to even take pics, but I still love it just the same. I love having another outlet for my creativity. Another way to tell stories. And eventually I hope to find ways to get all three together for a party, the writing, painting, and pics.

For now, they’re happy to pass the light around and share the stage.

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