Big Dream
Hello, it is currently 11:56 pm on Aug 30, 2022. I just got done reading chapter one and I really liked it. It was super hard for me to read through due to me being dyslexic and A.D.D. It was hard to concentrate on the more important information. When I got to pg 10 and saw the question that was being asked, I got scared to answer them. Not because it was homework or anything like that but because I don’t know what to give for the questions. I understand what they’re trying to ask but for the past year or so I have had no ambition or spark for photography anymore. It started to feel like a chore than it was to have fun with my projects. It turned into “this is due Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on. I looked at photography as a chore than looking at it as an art. Something I looked forward to in walking around the forest and taking pics. It now has turned into this, “can you take pictures of the kids? Can you do this? Or this and that?”
I didn’t get any satisfaction from doing any of the projects that Trisha assigned last semester cause I looked at them as if I have to get a good grade or else I’ll fail the class. I keep getting it in my head that if I don’t do well on a project I just break down and think I need to go on a different path or just not do it. It got so bad to the point where I just hated going to photo class even though in the past it was the one thing I was good at. I didn’t like doing graphic design, I was starting to get left behind with photos, and my mom kept thinking I was lazy cause I wasn’t taking photos much. I don’t think my mom really thinks I’m lazy I think she just wants me to push myself. I am the only one in the family that is going to college and I’m almost done. So the fact that I kept thinking in the back of my head, “I just wanna drop out and move on with life.” But whenever I’m trying to take a break from school or work, my mom gets on me and keeps telling me that “I need to be more productive, you didn’t have a long day, my day at work was way worse than yours.” Anytime she says things like that just makes me feel degraded and makes me feel like I’m lazy in doing anything in school. I also feel like whenever my family or friends need me they just need me to take pictures of them for free. Even though when I tell them no, they just start leaving and walking away from me. So anytime someone asks me to do something I just do it but whenever I go and do it, it makes me sad. It makes me feel overwhelmed anytime I take pictures of other people. It just makes me feel very uncomfortable.
As of right now “what would make me feel successful as an artist?” I’m gonna be honest I don’t think I’ll be successful, anytime someone asks me why I do what I do. I give my boring answer and say, “I just like doing it, it’s fun.” Feels more and more like a lie when I tell people that. Even though when I first started I had my High school camera and I enjoyed taking pictures of my friends doing sports, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into at the time. I just knew how to point and shoot and it was fun and simple. I think in terms of me feeling like a successful artist I have to fall back in love with photography. I need to take it slow and try to find out why I started taking photos in the first place and working on themes that I wanna work on that will really get me excited about the work I produce. I was talking with Trisha about how I was feeling about photography and she reassured me that I am a good photographer and that what I’m going through right now is personal. She sees that my love of photography is fading and she and I are sure everyone else wants to help me get back in the groove of loving photography again. I also think how I can be a successful artist is to focus on my mental health just like what the book said. I also believe I need to be in a safe environment to create the art that I wanna do.
I have a feeling that when I move out I will feel more and more confident in what I’m doing as a human and also as a student at Siena. My goal when it comes to my “big dream” is to get my passion back. I want to remember why I started to do photography. I know how to work the camera and how to use it well. But it doesn’t help if you don’t have the motivation to do what you are good at. After I was done talking with Trisha I had some sparks of ideas in my head and it made me feel better knowing that I’m slowly starting to get my groove back into doing photography. I also want to look at my assignment not so seriously, what I mean by that is I don’t want to be stressed about every little detail of my assignments. I want to have fun with them and not focus on the assignment as a grade rather than as a new experience.
