Personal Projects
Musings on long term creative endeavors
Project can be a dirty word. It can take on more of a flavor of an assignment for the professional. For long-term creative work that’s of a personal nature rather than an exercise in commerce it can introduce constraints that are counter to some of your own goals.
Some long-term personal work defies typical project constraints such as dead-lines. Case in point; an ongoing pursuit of my own — working title “Mirror — Mirror” — a smattering of raw material included. The seedlings sprouted almost a decade ago while performing my more commercial image making through observations of moments I found intriguing. Contrasted to the task at hand those moments were far more interesting to me than what I was hired to make. In some cases I photographed those moments. In many cases I did not.
The commercial pursuit was desgined, planned, budgeted, and staffed to ensure success within a particular time. This particular personal endeavor evloved into something that could be thought of as a project about two years ago. Since that time I’ve made hundreds of photographs on dozens of occasions. Less than half of those have produced anything that will be included in the end result.
Mirror — Mirror: An exploration of the female relationship to the architecture, societal notions, and artifacts of the concept of beauty.
Cases similar to what I’m trying to acheive with “Mirror-Mirror” aren’t condusive to time-line constraints. There’s certainly a vision of an end-state but the documentary nature and narrow criteria of visuals I’ve defined certainly don’t fit well with producing photographs in every circumstance that is a potential opportunity.
The best that I can do is increase the frequency of circumstances and conditions where photographs are possible but not assured. That’s the only process that’s consistent at this point. Attempts to control all of the other variables that come into play actually eliminate any potential for moments that communicate at all what I am attempting.
“Mirror — Mirror” is one personal project of a few where I’m going to try something new. Instead of landing the end result whole, I’ll share potential bits and pieces of work product as the project develops. Medium appears to be a platform that might work for this aspect.
Stay tuned.
RB
