It’s Not Black and White

I remember bringing photography books from the college library home to my rented room and spending the afternoon leafing through them.   I know that I’m just one of millions who’s love of photography was influenced by the biggies like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, or Robert Frank.   But, in my quiet, little corner of the world I felt like I was discovering them for the first time.   It was the first time I saw someone else visually record life, unstaged, as it was happening.  It didn’t matter that it wasn’t kodak color film, or on my continent, or even during my lifetime.  In fact, that made it even sweeter.   Opening those books was like glimpsing a perfect, secret moment in someone’s life.  And all the possibilities of the camera were laid out before me.  I wanted to document.

And I do.  I never received my fine arts degree, something i once thought I would need  (and would have loved doing.)   I don’t have a career- I take care of people.  And even if it interests no one but myself, I am an artist.  I don’t have to sell or be critiqued.  I don’t have to be super knowledgeable or skilled (I’m sure that I’m not.)   I don’t even have to be confident.  I don’t have to have state of the art equipment or editing programs.  (All things my culture implies that I need to be successful.)   In fact, part of me detests them.   I don’t have to be “good.”
There are a lot of us floating around out there without a business card.  Creating, recording, inventing, on the fly, just because we love it.   Living with an artful eye.  It’s a lovely gray area of freedom.