This past Saturday the Photography as Art exhibit opened to the public with a prize ceremony honoring what the judges found to be the best pictures submitted. I submitted a picture I call Composition. I took the picture many years ago. The flower was in my front yard, so I went up to it and took a bunch of pictures. This one was the best of the bunch. But, not the best in the competition. My photo didn�t win, it didn�t even get honorable mention. But, what can I do? My old boss, El Patron, thinks that it is a perfect picture. I did my best framing it, making sure the exposure was correct to show detail in the whites. But, I guess that wasn�t good enough for the judges. Who I now think are absolutely blind. Nevertheless, I still feel honored to have my work viewed by more people that visit my site on a daily basis. Despite not winning I can�t be too bitter because of that fact. I will say this� my competition takes a lot of pictures I'm sure. But, I'm not just taking pictures, I'm honing my skills. I once heard Ansel Adams say that he knew exactly how a photograph would come out even before he took the picture. When I heard that I aspired to have that kind of skill. I think I'm nearly there. That sort of skill separates the lucky photographer with the good photographer. A lucky photographer is going to have a couple of good pictures. A good one is going to make photography look so easy that anyone could do it. Because if the average person thinks they can do it then the technique, the skill, the work becomes invisible. The catch 22 is that people will think that it�s easy, but I can�t help that. Perhaps the justice will come when they try to take a similar picture and fail. The proof is in the pudding. Here I am at the event.  If you haven�t already checked out my websites full of non-award winning pictures here�s a link. Visit: IMAGE_171. In other news, I�m probably not going to pass my cataloging class in my masters program. I�ve struggled with this assignment all semester, and now the end is near and I�m still struggling. What�s worse, because of the struggles I�ve also been avoiding the work. Since I don�t understand it i�m frustrated. When I get frustrated I walk away from the situation. I confront it later, but my first move is to step back. This situation hasn�t been remedied by this, however. It�s only getting worse because the time is wasting and I�m still here with a punch of half thoughts and unfinished work. I�ll probably end up having to repeat this class, which only makes me sick. Physically ill actually. The other night I felt horrible just at the thought of confronting this assignment again. So much so that I avoided it, again. But there is no avoiding it for long. Either way, I�m not happy right now. The bills don�t seem to be going away, I feel completely bored with the pattern of work and school. Nothing excites me anymore. My only salvation through all this has been my photography. But not even getting an honorable mention did make me mad. To the point that I now feel energized to �show them� what for, what they missed, what they �didn�t get.� I�m more mad than disappointed. End Communication. |
