A NEW YEAR TO FOCUS ON WHAT I'VE LEFT BEHIND

Gawd I have been struggling to get this stupid post up, but here I am right? Funny how I had something written for a first day post ends up being thrown away with my other stupid thoughts. Anyway....

Towards the end and beginning of a new year I write a reflection post on things I've accomplished following concepts I want to work on for the next 52 weeks. Concepts like 365's, year long diptychs, polaroids and blah blah were among some of those approaches. Yes, it definitely helped create bodies of work and yes, definitely kept me busy between projects, but after completing them the images never went anywhere. They just sort of stood still in the bins or externals and fell asleep. And because of this there's a substantial amount of work I need to sift through.

With the arrival of a new decade my feelings seem a bit different upon first landing. The usual anxiety of prepping year long projects is present, but after thinking for a couple of days I decided that this year and ongoing I would need to start looking back and seeing what I've done. I mean what the fuck have I been doing all this time? Its a waste just taking pictures, developing negs (or bouncing digi's on the hard drives) and let them sit for months or even years. That lack of motivation will certainly keep that workflow alive if I don't do something about it.

So yes, this will be the first time in eight years I will not consistently update the blog. The total amount of trash I've put up has been sooooo depressing and just knowing I allowed that amount of work to be put up there doesn't sit well in my stomach. I could at least bite through a couple of images I'm proud of, but still... more trash than treasure. This is the motivator to start working on my past history little by little with proper care this collection deserves. It may not be the best images I've taken, but I could at least give some respect to its history.

With that being said I'm currently working on the LST LVS project I've neglected for awhile. There's been so much overhaul to it that its inception doesn't even come close to what it is today. Originally I've set out to create a song a month in correlation with images throughout that time and let each month be the sequence of both. Unfortunately I found the project almost failing miserably in forcefully creating them especially writing music. Most of the images and songs looked and sounded like it was rushed and I wasted so much time trying to bring something out of me that wasn't even there. Though I will admit *trying* to consistenly exercise both mediums was a great way to open up other avenues of the project. I'm still heading to the original direction in presentation, but rather being a trashy LP it's turning into an EP of songs that have better drawn out plans.


It was a bummer knowing these collections of songs were shrunk down to a handful. At the same time, however, I realized these handfuls are enough to grasp the idea of what I wanted in a project. It was the same result with the images and I couldn't be happier knowing that I'm picking out the best rather be married to images that could potentially crumble the sequence. I've been able to let go the idea of timelining the project and just organize the music and pictures kindly. This will probably be the longest running (and most edited) project I've ever done in my life. And that's precisely why I wanted to take my time with this and other future projects.

realization that I need to give myself some respect, but to be humble about what I have and who's around me. Though I'd like to be a bit more stern about what I want I also need to recognize the consequences of being selfish if asking for too much. It was a tough decade for me knowing how far I've come to get to where I am and I'm happy and thankful for where I am at, but it doesn't offer enough of what I could provide myself, my partner and to the ones who I love and to the ones who are in need. I'm tired of giving a fuck, but I'm also afraid of not caring at all. That kind of mindset led me to almost destroying my confidence as a person.

So, here I am... a new decade and an improved me I guess. It would've been cool to do some youtuber-twitter-esque posi bull about my decade experiences, but I'll just leave it to those who do them properly rather me failing completely. The 10's were about failures. The 20's should have better drawn out plans. You never know I suppose.