Why do we find it so hard to be true to ourselves?
My daughter recently stumbled upon a podcast called Makers and Mystics and shared it with me. In Season 2, Episodes 10 & 11, the host of the podcast, Stephen Roach, interviews one of our family's favorite musical creatives, Josh Garrels. We have all of Josh's music and have been fortunate enough to see him in concert numerous times. In the interview Josh talks about how he has remained true to himself, his family and his calling, by choosing to remain independent, even though signing with a major record label would have made his, and his family's, life so much easier.
I have been pondering Josh's words for the last month.
I have not been very present in this space this month, but I have been busy. I am putting the finishing touches on my website, and hope to have that live very soon. The class I am taking to build it, offered by artist Ivy Newport's husband, Chris, has been invaluable in building my Squarespace website. But the place I have struggled in staying true to myself is when the course talks about adding on-line classes to my website, and setting up e-commerce. As we walk through the different lessons, I think: yes, I should have these things.
But...if I am honest with myself, I don't want these things.
The truest me does not want to be sitting at my desk creating class content and recording videos. I don't want to have to manage orders and shipping of product. I want to be out in the meadow in my paisley rain boots, or wandering the shoreline in my red Taos shoes. I want to be out, not in.
But it is easy to listen to the admirers, to the supportive family, who are my biggest cheerleaders and are saying, "You should be selling your work".
Last weekend, I was reading the latest issue of Lenswork magazine (No. 131, August 2017) and the article The Best Time Ever by Brooks Jensen had some very interesting points that fueled my pondering...
"...I have often thought it odd that so many photographers are seduced by the idea of selling their work. Why? To those of you who play golf, garden, fish, knit, cook, or play an instrument, are you equally driven to turn your enjoyable past time into an income-driven career? All of those hobbies are just as expensive as photography, but I don't find many who are as tempted as photographers to find some way to subsidize their hobby with a professional income stream."
But it is later in the article that Brooks' words echoed the feelings in my own heart...
"This does bring us to the knotty problem of why we do our photography. Seriously, why are you a photographer? We each have our answers and they are all correctly a matter of personal choice. I decided a long time ago that my purpose for doing all this work (and spending all this time and money) is two-fold: first, for strictly internal motivations of personal growth, and a means to explore the world; second, to share my creative vision and production with the world as much as I can. Notice there is nothing in either of those goals that would necessarily lead me into the world of commerce as my first choice -- or for that matter, my second, third, or fourth choice."
Amen.
Photography began for me as a way to find out who I was, not Glen's wife, not Mallory's mom, but Sarah. It has richly blessed me in the discoveries it has led to. It has allowed me the freedom to explore both close to home and farther abroad. It is the common interest shared among my creative friends, friends that I never would have met otherwise. It has brought my husband and I closer as we share, learn, laugh and gather stories together. It will probably never make me rich, at least not monetarily, and I am completely okay with that.
I need other people to create on-line classes, because I love taking them and learning. But I will continue to share my gifts and talents freely, through my pictures and words, and know that I am staying true to myself by doing that.
