We just returned from a four-day trip to New York City where we celebrated my sister-in-law's engagement. Since this trip was more about family and enjoying the city, I approached it a bit differently from a photography perspective. Instead of looking for grand cityscapes, I focused mostly on capturing details of the city. And instead of bringing all my gear, I packed the X100S and a Fujinon Wide Conversion Lens that I rented. While I was initially apprehensive about leaving the X-Pro1 behind, I was soon reminded of just how versatile the X100S is as a travel camera. Here are some of my favorite images captured while we explored the streets of New York City.
Blog
Simplicity and the X100S Part 2
As I've mentioned in the past, the X100S is the camera I turn to whenever I want to keep things simple. Without having to worry about zooming or changing lenses, I'm left to focus on creating images. By concentrating on what I see in the viewfinder, I find that I'm not only more creative with my compositions, but more able to find a narrative in the images I bring home. Here is a series of images from my latest exercise in simplicity.
Bridging the Gap Revisited
I wrote about bridging the gap back in October of 2011 on my Chasing Creativity blog. Since that time, the blog has been taken down and I have moved on with my creative pursuits. Yesterday, I was reminded of the post when I saw this video on PetaPixel. Going back and re-reading what I wrote, I feel that most of what I said back then is still very much true today. For that reason, I wanted to share what I wrote for those of you that might struggle with their creativity in the same way that I have and still do today.
Bridging the Gap
I came across this video of Ira Glass talking about Storytelling sometime last year. It resonated with me quite a bit at that time because I had just put my creative pursuits on hold. I thought about what he was saying for a couple days and filed it away as something to revisit later. I had all but forgotten about the video until I came across the following quote taken from it not once, but twice last week on Google+.
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
Sitting there reading the quote and then re-watching the video left me with a really great feeling. It makes me feel good about picking up a camera again and diving back into my creative pursuits. While I originally put all this on hold because life got too busy, I always had those feelings of my work not being any good while I was knee deep in photography. I would shoot and shoot and shoot and come home disappointed because the images I brought back didn’t live up to my expectations. They weren’t as good as all the awesome work I saw online and that left me feeling discouraged. Now that I think about it, this discouragement likely made it easier for me to put my creative work on hold. I could focus on real life and forget about the fact that I wasn’t any good at photography, at least in my own eyes.
Coming across this again now just seems too timely to be a coincidence; it helps reaffirm the confidence I have now which I lacked a year ago. I still see a huge gap between my work and my taste, but I’m okay with that. I’m okay with the fact that the pictures I make don’t get a hundred comments on Flickr or any likes on Facebook. I’m okay with the fact that my work doesn’t stand up to the work of those I admire. I can now honestly say that I like the pictures I make and that’s what matters most. Because at the end of the day, I’m not pursuing anyone else’s vision, only my own. So I plan to keep making pictures and to keep writing because I love it and it makes me happier now then it did a year ago. And I’ll be okay if I never ever manage to completely close the gap between my work and my taste as long as I continue to love what I’m doing.
LACMA
Newport Back Bay Sunset
I've been to the Newport Back Bay many times over the past few years and on many of those occasions, I was greeted by a beautiful sunset. So when I found myself with some time last weekend, I headed to the Back Bay to capture a few long exposure images. Having arrived an hour before sunset, I wandered around a bit until I found a good place to set up my camera and tripod. As I watched the sun slowly move towards the horizon, I considered leaving and finding a better location to shoot. I thought better of it however, and decided to sit tight and simply enjoy the view. Well, it turns out my decision to wait was a good one as I was rewarded with yet another beautiful Back Bay sunset. This image is my favorite and the one I feel best illustrates the scene I watched unfold this past Sunday evening.
