Climbing The Wall

You know there's something seriously wrong with you when you have to talk to your parents about it. Fortunately, it seems to have tackled some of my issues, or at least prodded them a bit. I'm starting to think a little more positively, and although I have my doubts about what I'm going to do when I finish this final year, I feel like I can actually finish it without melting.

I've decided that I need to do a project which is fun and a bit of a "mishmash" of ideas: I don't really have much idea about a theme yet, but it will hopefully end up with a strong narrative. One problem I always seem to come across is a lack of enthusiasm for whatever I end up doing - although I do often find stuff interesting, I struggle to sustain any motivation to make the work. By making the work more fun, more "me", more focused on my everyday life; hopefully it will encourage me to keep making work, and lots of it.

I've been wanting to do a shoot of my band for quite some time, but have never got round to organising it. I'm going to do that. We practice once a week - I make quite an effort to go home every Monday night just for those few hours - so I consider the band an important part of my life. I'm also planning a shoot for a friend's band. I'm buying a Metz flash, another thing I should have done ages ago, and I'm going to start experimenting with that. I want to continue doing my night photography, but allow that part of my practice to be informed by the other things I have planned. I think, in order to love photography again, I need to start taking photos all the time like I used to, and I need to realise that anything I do is worthy of inclusion in the project.

Today I took my first photograph in a long time. It was quite spontaneous, I just forced myself to do something and suddenly had a strange idea for an image. It's not great, and only shot on digital, but once I get my Metz I will reshoot it on the Hasselblad, and maybe even on 5x4. Here it is:

"Computer Music"

Also worth mentioning: I am taking part in a local (Portsmouth) photographic project called Culture Flash. Basically, I'm given a disposable camera (as are 99 other people) to take photographs of.....whatever the hell I want! This will hopefully be quite refreshing for me, as the photographs won't have to mean anything. Visit the Culture Flash website to find out more - Click Here.