A glimpse behind the camera
Can we truly know the artist by knowing their art alone?
Hey Film Fam, welcome back!
June is a difficult time of year for me as midway through the month a ‘survival’ trauma anniversary sets in. I have to prepare in advance and make sure I take time away to recover and recalibrate. ‘Body Memories’ are just one of the many joys of living with Complex-PTSD.
As a result of this yearly routine I haven't had any desire to pick up a camera, let alone edit new photos, or talk about film - and I hadn’t even given a single thought to what my next newsletter should be about if I’m being completely honest. Everything just became a fog as I found myself re-entering survival mode, and I’m still clawing my way out of it. So bare with me here while I get back to baseline again. This newsletter might be a tad chaotic.
While wondering what I should tell you about, it suddenly clicked - I should let you get to really know me and in turn maybe understand my art a bit better.
I hope for this newsletter to spark a little bit of discussion, I’d really like it if you could join in and leave a comment, maybe let me know just one fact about yourself, or if anything resonated. Hopefully we feel a little less like strangers after this.
As always these newsletters tend to be quite rambly, photo heavy, and have the vibe of catching up with that one friend you haven’t seen in a while who’s just very passionate about all things film. So if that’s your kind of jam, you’re in the right place!
Grab a coffee, settle in, and let’s get into it!
That’s the thing about artists and creatives isn’t it?
Those of us who are creatively inclined - whether you’re a written and spoken word poet, photographer, painter, knitter, dressmaker, and so on - seem to be able to talk endlessly about our art. We obsess over sharing every though that pops into our head about the process of bringing it to life, the ins and outs of every little nuance, bragging about the niches we’ve boxed ourselves into - justifying all the why’s and how’s of what we do.
We can dabble in long conversations about the specific techniques - like push/pulling film, the scanning process, how to create the perfect content to get enough eyes on your photos, how to make people see you as an authority in your field of choice, etc. We write essays about the knowledge and skills involved in our passions, and describe exactly how we created this glorious thing we have shared openly with the world. We try to teach others and spark passion in a new generation of artists, a deeper validation that we’re good enough to be seen as mentors.
We can do all of this, focus entirely on the actions and the art itself - yet the second someone asks us a simple question like “So…who are you?”- we freeze.
Why is that? Why are we so afraid to be known deeply?