I’m trying to please myself; certainly that’s a big criterion… though in a sense, I don’t take images just for myself. I take images that I think other people will want to see. I don’t take pictures to put in a box and hide them. I want as many people to see them as possible.
I came across this quote by Mary Ellen Mark, and it makes a point I’ve been wrestling with lately. I want as many people as possible to see what I do. Whether anybody likes what I do or not isn’t the point. Some will, some won’t, most won’t really care one way or the other. To me an important part of taking pictures is simply showing them and letting whoever stumbles on to them decide for themselves if it’s worth spending their time with them. I think I’ll start showing more again.
I’ve been posting a few snapshots here on and off, but I haven’t been on Twitter for a few months now, and I haven’t done Instagram in a couple of years. One of these days I’ll probably start doing both again for a simple reason — I take a lot of snapshots, I do it for the fun and pleasure of doing it, I like to experiment and play with different approaches, and I like to show what I do. When I first started in photography it was much more difficult to show your work. There were limited opportunities and there were gatekeepers to get through at all of them. Not so now, and I want to take advantage of that.
I can start up Instagram any time I want to, but I’ll wait on Twitter until most of the gas concerning the upcoming election has been passed and a decision has been made. When that might be still seems to be a bit of a moving target. I’ll be posting here now and then too. Maybe I’ll see you around…