What Am I Working On?

Recently, on the street, a photographer friend asked me a very normal question: "what are you working on right now?"

In the moment, feeling on the spot, I yammered for a few minutes about trying to add onto a pile of pictures I have of a certain character, of shooting more at night, of working towards the next book and my various ideas of my "goals." Nothing I said was untruthful, but I left the conversation feeling like I had answered in the manner of someone with a careerist orientation, my statements framed from the perspective of conventional thinking about what being a photographer is. I had not honored my deepest personal values, which have nothing to do with that.

So, I decided to think through the reality of what is going on with me right now as an artist and reformulate my answer, at least for myself. So…

What I really am working on right now:

1) Seeking vulnerability in my pictures.

When I finished printing my book, Heavenly Arms, I looked back through the 63 photographs in it for the millionth time, no longer able to see their objective impact and resonances, simply because I've seen them so much, but I still felt pride in all the growth and commitment that led to them. That condition of exposure blindness which made me unable to really see the work as I once had revealed something to me: the aesthetic character of the photographs was...very determinate. That is the only word I can come up with for it. Everything sharp and solid. The pictures tend to pop. Everything has an exclamation point after it. I had developed this look over a very long period of time, but it felt like spiritually I had moved on, ready to express more vulnerability and looseness. I had become very good at making these kind of determinate pictures, and to choose to approach things differently has meant going through a bit of an ego crisis.

Sometimes in order to do something new in our work we have to let go of something we're good at. I am often in situations now where my attempts to use different techniques and approaches towards that vulnerability causes me to mess up pictures that I know I could nail with my old ways. Regret sets in, fueled by the fear of ruining my chances at "good" results. Fear of self-sabotage sets in. But I am getting better at commiting and honoring the blues that wants to come out of me right now. It's been a heavy year. My marriage ended. I finished a book and got it into the world. I moved from my longtime neighborhood. A ton of upheaval which has left me exhausted and feeling no clarity about my future. I tell myself that this all belongs in the work, and that the way it'll manifest is through seeking that sense of vulnerability in the pictures. I feel certain that this mission should go beyond pictures, that it's my spiritual path to seek less power, less control, to be an open vessel. It isn't about "getting it right."

2) Removing all self-protection.

Don't worry, I'm not talking about sacrificing my physical safety. On the contrary. The self I refer to is the construct we all make, the identities that our egos create and maintain. That self which we make up stories about and seek to justify isn't something I actually believe in or value, but like most of us I feel protective of it, afraid of losing it and my illusion of control. This has little to do with photography, but this medium, this practice, offers a concrete way to exercise the willful abandonment of self-protection that leaves space for an authentic spirit to emerge, rather than a construct of ego and manipulation. If I'm guarding my ego's safety I'm not truly showing up as a full human being, am I? And that vulnerability I want in my pictures isn't likely to show itself more readily if I'm in a mode of self-protection. My heart needs to be fully cracked open.

3) To act as if I am already free.

This was something I heard in an interview with anthropologist David Graeber where he was explaining the anarchist concept of direct action (in contrast to other strategies of societal change, like Marxist or liberal ideas). I related to this immediately as a statement of purpose on a personal or artistic level as well. Not that I've been the kind of person up till now who's waited for permission or assignment. Obviously not. But, inside my head I can find myself in a dialogue that––if you could hear it as an audible voice––would sound a lot like someone who thinks their freedom of action, thought, and even what to make, is somehow dependent on an outside mandate or some imagined obstacles being removed. One primitive version of this is living in the "if/then" belief system. "If I do X then Y will happen." It isn't the mindset of a free person. The artists I have most admired and wanted to be like were the ones that went their own way, unmindful of consequences, assured in their direction. I may not always be fully free in my thinking, but I can act as if I am. The voices of conventional wisdom are not what I believe in, so why be fearful of them? The fear doesn't go away just because you tell it to. Action tends to bring me out of the pre-supposing and self-limiting state. I believe that our artistic work should be "the axe for the frozen sea within us," as Kafka said. How are we going to do that if we're behaving like someone waiting to win acceptance or acheive correctness?