One day you wake up and a thought is sitting there like a stone.
It is not an original thought, in fact I have been bouncing off it for the last year or two, but I feel strongly, almost inevitably that I am about to quit all this.
I guess if you love doing something enough to call it a passion, but cannot remember the last time you did it for you, the last time yuo applied it in a way that resembles why you wanted to do it in the first place and that only seems to be getting worse, then maybe it is time to make it a hobby again. To make it something you do when, how and why you want, so that other than making a meagre living it fills your soul, makes you happy like it used to.
Is it the end then of my journey?
For me, I certainly hope not. Where I will go from here will be purely driven by me, something I hope will help others such as volunteer docco and event recording, but for stills, the future looks bright, for video, nt as sure, but I do know these things;
Rare places give something back, something I have missed.
I am not interested in making time pressured commercial videos for people, just content for personal projects.
I am fully aware that I have avenues open to me such as an offer to shoot video for the AFL Tas contracted videographers (I may still do some stills for them, unless I find other work that clashes), or weddings, real estate etc but again, not my things, no point and I am aware that what is on offer these days is changing in ways I am not interested in.
I intend to be a dated relic, a hold out for authenticity and purity of process.
The only controlled type of photography I want to do is in a studio-portrait context, everything else needs to be real, cinema vérité, purely observational, the way I grew my skills in the first place.
I am quite good at controlling crowds, something you do often around teams and school groups, but recently a school decided they were going to take up their head shot service provider on an offer to do their group shots for free (money is tight everywhere).
I was annoyed and relieved in equal measure, but then I was asked if I would be open to working for the same contractor, a growing concern running on stretched resources, it hit me, I really do not want to do that type of photography and never really did. It was part of the whole package, not the bit I liked, just the bit I had to do.
I adapted, I got decent at it, but there was no passion for it and I rarely cared if I got or not.
No matter how bright the paint is, it cannot hide the rot inside.
A little bit for the two schools was ok, it’s a full day earner and added some variety into the mix, but not for me, not all the time.
If you begin to hate doing something you are meant to love because of what it has become, have you lost twice?
Anyway, still working out what I want to do (something in service, aged care or teachers aide maybe), but pretty resolved to stay on this path.
I am regretting the printer going, because I feel it was the right tool for an artistic hobbyist which with luck I will be again, but it is not far away and to be honest I did not have room for it.
I have since had a talk with a few people who live similar lives and they to have experienced different levels of this, plenty of wisdom and shared experiences to help me see things in perspective. I then came home to my first AFL stills booking confirmation, something I do enjoy. The plan is still to move on, the rush may have cooled off a little.