Dear All,
I have finally been able to gather my thoughts (and also enough courage) to try to explain what my motives have been and what I have learned from your kind responses and how I intend to put them to good use.
Firstly, let's take a look at my original post, which was obviously a very emotional statement of a personal disappointment and the consequences I have drawn from it. I felt that my photography was a failure (in my opinion). Why is that? I think the main reason is that I haven't thought enough about my own expectations (let alone whether or not they would have been realistic). Just to put things into their proper context; I have a full-time day job in the IT and I have never been a professional photographer nor have I really wanted to eventually become one. So please understand that I am not disappointed due a lack of success in that area, far from it. Rather, we are simply looking at a bad case of expectations management, which is caused by not having clear cut expectations or goals. The correct sequence (like in any other business) would be: establish goals, define the associated success criteria, create a plan to achieve those goals, execute the plan and measure the resulting success. In my case, the first two steps have not been done properly.
In the past 39 years, I have been taking photographs good or bad (obviously more bad than good) but I have been continuously learning and improving. In that sense, I have been really persevering. Especially during the past 4 years, I have started to focus much more on my photography than I have ever done before. This was a period of personal renaissance, a time of much experimenting, learning, sharing and joy. Earlier this year, there came a moment that I have realized that I have achieved perhaps 90% of the technical and artistic competence I could ever achieve in this field. Achieving the remaining 10% will be a very steep curve and it will take many more years to get there if at all. While I have been concentrating on getting my technical and artistic expression right, I have not spent much time thinking about my personal goals. What did I want to achieve after all? Was I doing this for the fame, money, appreciation, self enjoyment, providing pleasure to others, what else? I simply did not know the answer to this. But I felt disappointed nevertheless. Apparently, deep down inside I was hoping that something would "magically" happen and all of a sudden my years of effort would be rewarded (as it happens in silly Hollywood films). But what and how exactly? And therein lies rub.
I have started posting less and less of my work here in OPF. I've lost my inspiration. Take landscapes for example, my main area of interest in photography. I have been out there with my camera gear many times this year and came back home without taking a picture. Because I thought that all that I could take pictures of have been pictured before (by me or by others) and what value would it add? C&C provided by experts such as Ken (not specifically his C&C to my own pictures but his posts in general) have constantly reminded me of the fact that the world is full of wannabe photographers with their affordable DSLR cameras and their popular flickr accounts. Did I really belong in that crowd? Did I not deserve to be better than that given my long trials and tribulations in photography? But then again, how does one become better? Better than what? What are the success criteria? And as you see, we are back where we've started. This was thus the reason that I have gotten so frustrated that I thought maybe I should leave all that behind me. I have started this thread not thinking that you'd make me change my mind; my mind was pretty much made up. Perhaps unconsciously I was hoping that I would get some pointers in order to break the negative cycle. Which, thanks to you, seems to be happening right now. Putting this train of thoughts on paper is already helping me realize what the pitfalls have been and how I may avoid them next time.
I would now like to put the focus back on what you have all written. Many of the comments have common recurring elements in them. Perhaps it is a good idea to categorize them first, rather than trying to reply to each individual comment.
First of all, the most common aspect is the friendship and support. For which I am truly grateful to all of you. I have forgotten how much we have shared with each other during our OPF journey and how much we have meant for each other during good times but also bad periods. Sometimes, I have been on the receiving and sometimes giving. And it this general culture of OPF which nurtures selfless reciprocation of friendship, support and encouragement is what makes OPF so special for all of us.
Secondly, there is the aspect of my photography being worth something. Again, I really appreciate you reconfirming this for me, although deep down in my heart I did not really doubt it myself either. As I have explained above, it wasn't the case that I thought I was taking bad pictures. I realize truly that we eventually have a few keepers out of hundreds/thousands; not every picture is destined to be a winner. Yes indeed, recently I have lost inspiration and stopped taking pictures but I did not doubt much about the technical proficiency of my pictures. The problem was, again, the undefined expectation: what were the pictures supposed to deliver? When I could not answer that, I started to assume that my photography was worthless (i.e. did not deliver any results). As Ken has put it so well, my photography wasn't the failure but the path that I'd walked which had failed me.
Next, there is the grouped topic of creative cycles, emotions, rationality, crisis and depression. Well, let me tell you first that I am not suffering from any psychological or physiological illnesses such as depression, emotional instability, bipolarity or the like. Upon re-reading my initial post and by the absence of any further explanations from me as to why, I can imagine that a reader can get the impression that these might be the possible reasons/background to my post. I admit to being extremely frustrated (i.e. emotional) regarding this topic matter, but please do not assume that this also applies to other areas in my personal life; it does not. And if it would, I would have definitely sought support from professionals, the importance of which aptly pointed out by Alain and Asher. As it happens, the OPF regulars here are the "professionals" in the area of my problem so I am kind of looking for answers in the right circles rather than try to rediscover the wheel all by myself. Regarding the cyclic nature of an artists creative existence and the creative depressions associated with it, I understand the phenomenon and admit that I must have certainly been suffering from it.
And finally, let's address all that great advices I have been given as to how to cope with this situation and how to move on forward. The common elements are the need for (re)defining goals and directions, creating projects, joining a workshop or training, persevering, patting myself on the back, being less harsh with self-criticism, studying and practicing regularly, being active and taking charge, learning to deal with C&C in a rational manner, seeking answers from within, listening to trusted friends, etc. Needless to say, this is all excellent advice and all of it needs to be put into good use in various degrees and at various stages. But first, I need to do a triage and decide upon the immediate actions to be taken. Writing this letter was the first of those and I should say that it has really helped me shed some (perhaps most) of the negative feelings already. Now that I seem to realize where I might have taken a wrong turn along the road, I need to start working on finding my way back again. In order to assist the healing process, what would be a better bandage on the wound than to spend some more quality time on OPF again? I have realized that I need to rediscover the pure joy of friendship, sharing of knowledge and sharing of photography; which I have always enjoyed here in OPF from the very beginning. Which means that I will have to leave my comfort zone and re-earn my "stripes", starting from bottom up all over again. So expect me to become active once more in the fora. In parallel, I will be working on the following. I will think thoroughly about my personal goals and the success criteria. I will start taking pictures again. I will setup some photography projects and execute them. I will reorganize my picture database and share some forgotten pictures here with you. And I will finally update the missing galleries on my web site. And the next time I feel down again, I will first re-read all of this thread. That is also why it is important that it should remain accessible to the public.
So sorry in case you have been patient enough to read all of this, it seems that I cannot be brief enough in such matters. I hope that I could make some sense out of it after all.
Finally, my sincere gratitude goes out to all of you, also to those OPF members who chose to not participate in this thread. OPF has been my extended family for so long. I am very happy and privileged that I have known/met you along the journey.
Hereby, I would like to wish all of you a terrific new year. May it bring health, love, happiness, fortune and wisdom to all of us.
Cheers,
