So I guess you can say that when I decide to start a project, I take it seriously. Just ask Amanda Sosa Stone, owner of www.shootinflorida.com. A few years ago she had assigned me a list of photographs to shoot over a period of one year. She was probably wondering if I was sleeping at night when I presented her with the photographs after just a few months. Well this time around I started a project and feel it is reasonably thorough after one week. I can't say that the work is complete, but I have an extremely good path cut out for where I will be going from here. All I have been doing is shooting, and yes I do feel exhausted. It is all worth it. I get a thrilling sensation when I set out to photograph something and it comes back even better than I had imagined it in my mind. It is like being on the Hulk at Islands of Adventure when it shoots you up and out of the tunnel in the beginning. (Those of you who have been on that roller coaster know what I am talking about!) You aren't expecting it, and it is a little bit scary, but boy is it fun! I might be a little bit of an odd-ball because of this, but art can be so satisfying.
I told a good friend to take a peek at my new work today. After viewing & knowing that it was all done this week she asked if she could borrow a bit of my motivation. It made me think a little bit about why I photograph as intensely as I do. If you could take all of the energy I have towards photography and turn it into physical power I would be a linebacker on a football team! I have this weird blend of self-motivation and anxiety. The self-motivation is what initially gets me going, then the anxiety comes in and turns me into a crazy lady who can't put her camera down until she feels she is "finished". Then, even when I might feel finished the self-motivation jumps back in just to push me a little bit harder. Instead of shooting once a week or once a month like a normal person, I am scheduling three models a day & working for 12 hours in a row without even a lunch break. There is a "zone" that my head goes into while I am shooting and the hours just fly by like minutes. How does it happen that when it feels like it should be 3:00 in the afternoon that it is almost 7:00pm? I guess that is the only part of me I can claim as "mad artist". The rest of me seems normal.
So, I can't recommend my method to everyone. In fact, I don't, but now you know.
-Betsy
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