When I am growing as an artist I always ask myself, who am I creating for?
What gets me up to do some work? The answer should be myself.
In every case of artists that have a hard time finding success or enjoying what they do, that dissatisfaction often stems from trying to please others. When I spend my energy trying to make people happy with my work, my work suffers. The final product doesn’t have the same shine that it once did. I’m not excited about it and people can see that. There isn’t enough of me left in the work. When I put too much effort in thinking what the viewer might like, I ignore what I really want to do. I’m being driven by the desire to make my viewer happy, I lost sight of what I wanted to do and what I needed to make for myself. Many will say that you need to make the client happy, which is true. I can’t forget what got me the job in the first place. If I showed work that made me happy, that is what my client saw, that is what my client wants.
When I create for myself, I show my intent and the end product is better as a result. What I do is a creative process and like I have said before, the biggest difference between myself and others is my own unique vision. When people are drawn to my work, I strongly feel and believe it is because of that unique vision and look that I have in my work. I feel this way as I have changed my work for a client. What was the result? Silence. The client never responded to the work that I provided. To myself, I thought the work was good and that the client was going to like what I showed. Looking back on the work that inspired them to get a hold of me in the first place, That work was on another level. They wanted to see what I could do with a different subject matter and I didn’t deliver.
In photography there are so many ways to show the same subject. When you have an opportunity to show what you can do, don’t get overwhelmed by what you think people want. Just do what you do. If they don’t like it at least you will have some more images that you like. I will always choose to make the shot that I like, I will work with in the parameters that may have been set out, in the end it is my art, I’m not just there to push the shutter button and carry the camera equipment.
Always shoot for yourself first. No apologies.
