I have been crabby lately. Really crabby. Mostly I think it's a mix of
hormones with some very, very needy clients and a huge workload of
unfinished details.
Saturday morning a friend said something to me that was like a kick in
the butt. It was, "Are you going to be about babies like you are about
weddings?" And I was stopped dead in my tracks.
It made me sad to think that I could be giving off the sense that I
don't love my kids and my work and the niche I've carved for myself
photographing them.
But it also made me realize that I really DON'T like my workload right
now and I've been wrestling with why.
And yesterday I figured out the missing piece: I've not printed any of
my personal work for ages. When I say ages I mean months and months.
I have not printed any of my stuff of my dear muse niece Rachel, any
of my abstract images from the day a friend and I went out shooting
back in December, any of my Lensbaby images from way back when I took
a day off to go to Atchison.
I changed that yesterday and I sat at my computer and played with
images, messed with sizes and shapes and colors and edges and I
PRINTED them and man oh man did it feel good.
Last night when I crawled in bed to read before going to sleep, Ruth
asked what I was reading. It's a new book called Taking Your
Photography to the Next Level.
She asked me what my next level was.
I told her printing.
She looked puzzled.
Not printing would be like taking rolls and rolls of film and stuffing
them in a drawer and never developing them and never printing them.
In a million years I never would have done that when I shot film; I
used to practically trip down the stairs in excitement to get to the
darkroom to process images when I finished a roll of film.
I explained that for me being a photographer isn't just about getting
the image, it's about creating and seeing the finished print.
Yesterday I figured out that essentially what I've been doing with my
personal work is getting the images and shoving the the film in a
drawer.
I had no idea the impact not printing was having on me.
I'm happier today than I've been in ages.
Lea
life is short. photograph it. and print it.
www.leamurphy.com
