The Looking Glass Self
It’s my birthday month and I am fortunate enough to go pick up my visiting sister for a whole week to travel, photograph, and explore parts of British Columbia’s mainland. Despite having a really (really) fun job and despite getting to go and see the world for it, there is a lot of unseen planning, coordinating, dreading, hoping and wishing that goes into its entirety.
I think there is this idea that shooters get to practice their creative craft on a whim… and sometimes, that is the case. We get lucky enough to see something and then immediately have the ability, skill and swiftness to capture it with no prior plan. Magic often happens within a great scheme: an illusion of instantaneous momentum and rhythm resulting in the perfect moment. Often though, that shit has been practiced, choreographed, and intuitively tested for months on end, if not years.
Like any art form, it is rare to stumble into the perfect environment to create, with the proper tools for your practice, and your best self on full blast… and I quite love the challenge and creativity that comes with not having the perfect stage to perform on.
I also love that with my photography, I am able to invite the viewer into a space that isn’t perfect either… I ask you, the viewer, to place each picture and perspective into your own mind and build out its world from there. When things aren’t perfect, that is how you come to gather different perspectives. As much as it is my job to pull out snapshots of life from the world into my camera, it is as much the viewers’ job to engage in the creative task of building an entire world from this moment in time.
That’s what is so beautiful about art, I think, is how we each go about interpreting what different worlds can look like… even if they are all born of the same thing.
My eye is an extension of my skill and experience…
…While my camera is one of the tools that allows me to create in a medium that I hope says something to you, the viewer on the other side of my mirrored glass.
I never really wanted to grow up to be an ‘influencer’ but I see now that the joy and humour in life is simply watching how things take shape. Certain aspects of our humanness, like what we are naturally drawn to and what we are inspired to be, combined with how we use our skills, our experiences, and our knowledge allows us to grow into ourselves. Space is carved out for you in this world whether you like it or not – and it’s always so interesting to see where I end up next.
It's been a long time since I’ve gone away, which is one of my big, positive mental health motivators: to go to new places and see shit that blows your mind. Despite the pull to travel, it isn’t always as easy as getting up and walking out the door. What’s caught me extra off guard is how hard it can be to pull away from the grasp you have on everyday life, once you’ve been living the same routine for so long.
As I sit in Gigi’s Café in Vancouver, BC though, awaiting my sister’s plane to touch down, sipping on a warm hug Canadians call a London Fog, I am overwhelmed with excitement for this trip. I have yet to be away for more than a week since What’s Good’s conception and it is most certainly time to loosen the grip on my everyday life and reconnect with my own story behind it all. I believe it is important, for any artist let alone individual, to re-evaluate if what I am communicating is what I hope to actually share about myself, my moments, and my very human history. I hope it is.