Everyone is a photographer nowadays…
Is it good or bad? I personally don’t care but what I do care is the load of information and emotions a certain shot brings with.
What drives me crazy and mad in the World of Instagram and FB is a constant chase for fame, applauze or rewards for questionable things in general.
People want immidiate (Insta-nt) results, however with no acceptance for critcism. This is the second thing I can’t understand. Every comment is treated in an offcencive way. A commenter is automatically discarded by founding his/her early works to laugh at. Does it really work like that? I am really thankful for those people who told me what I did wrong. It takes ages to understand sometimes, but genius is there! Unfortunately an avalanche of likesforlikes blows valuable comments. It is sad that people are deaf and blind through their own self-admiration or in the worst case – money.
My decission was to write this post no to justify my attitude or say that I am cool as I am not using social media. I try to see the problem and do something with it starting from myself. I caught myself that at some point my empathy to other people was lost somwhere between tapping and and lack of dual attention skills.
Some time ago we attended street photography workshop in London. It was a great experience and I personally caught couple extra ideas about framing and light ‘abuse’. Unfortunatelly right after it I felt under pressure of looking at different people to get more and more followers, to upload at least a picture per day for the audience expansion. It couldn’t work. I understood that when my son was born and I started the Home project. We cannot rush things. Everything has its place and time in the Space hence the title of this post: slow and calm. It could be treated as an advice or a boring post for others.
My son and wife are teaching me how to gain empathy and how to understand. They are my guideposts showing where’s the direction. It applies in many places, from home relations through daily routines, spontagnous decissions and photography as well. Being calm, full of passion with huge dose of patience I can understand, listen and see much more than before. That helps to bring my voice up not only in photography. There is no number of likes or followers which can teach you how to be a human.
