Finding a way round and through
It’s a lonely moment when you realise there’s no one around to really show your photos to.
But that pause and the time those viewers take to speak, is enough to help you find what it is you’re trying to say with your photos.
From college to university to graduation to real life on the ‘outside’ and finding a way to making it succeed. The journey of a photographer – specifically mine, which doesn’t look altogether that much different to others– is often bumpy, isolating, rarely plain sailing, sometimes brilliant, sometimes awful, always fulfilling, and a lot of hard work.
I’m often asked about my life as a photographer and any advice I would give on how to manage it and I’m never sure what to say. Depending on when you ask, my answer could range from supportive and hopeful, to practical and useful, to stark warnings about the future of photography in a world saturated by images, and a deep cynicism about an information economy, controlled by a handful of billionaires, who are dangerously skewing the truth of what we see. But no matter when you ask me, I will always always offer up this:
Keep taking photos and find your tribe.
Despite how much I love my job, it’s not an easy juggle being both a jobbing photographer and trying to build a name for yourself as an artist at the same time. The tiring rigmarole of perpetually questioning your every move in case it brings it all crashing down. It’s been nearly 15 years since I started this dance, and whilst I wobble often, I find my balance a lot quicker these days, which I put down to mostly one thing. Over the course of my work/life/art/play I have happened upon and been lucky enough to find the folks who, as much as anyone can, understands the work I make and the life I’m trying to live. A collective voice of reason that keeps my inner criticisms in check. As my career and my photography age so too does my trust in them deepened. I don’t always ask and I don’t always listen but through their growing knowledge of who of I am as a photographer, my work feels more complete and more inherently mine.
It was at university that I first felt that sense of community and found validation in peer support and the positive influence it can have on the images we make. But when we graduated, although mostly still in touch, we could never keep ourselves together in the same way we had before. Life pulled our threads in different directions, both towards and away from a life of photography. In those post-uni years, I lost that community and so too with it, the idea of making photographs that weren’t for work. Every time I tried, it felt harder and slower, and like something was blocked in a way that got more stuck as the time since graduation grew longer.
Eventually that block became so much that I felt its weight every day. Knowing I couldn’t get round it or avoid it, I was nearing the time when I had to find a way to finally unstick it or forever walk away from making my own work again. Although I knew what the answer was, I felt nauseous every time I thought about it because just putting your unseen images out there is terrifying. It’s a lonely moment when you realise there’s no one around to really show your photos to. My university years had taught me it was possible, but I was unsure how to find it again. For those who come to photography via a different route, it can be harder still. I mean, who enjoys having to go out and find those people in whom to trust, when you feel like you’ve nothing worthwhile to show?
Of course there’s friends, and partners and family that will tell you how much they love your photos without ever really looking, because they think that’s what you need to hear. And, in my situation, I have a career in photography. It’s a career that I love and value and appreciate and does bring a sense of achievement and validation in many ways. But as an image maker, there’s a different type of viewer that you need, if you’re serious about making pictures.
The viewers you need are those folks that go quiet for a moment when you lay your prints on the table as they give themselves the space and time to think about what they’re really seeing. They go to say something then stop for a second just to make sure, they really know what it is they’re going to say. In that pause, your images are viewed through the eyes that go beyond the blind optimism of close friends and family and the cash you’re paid to take them. It’s in that pause that lies the building of the trust that you need to let yourself go and start to believe that your images are worth something. You might not agree with what they have to say and they might not always be right, but that pause and the time those viewers take to speak, is enough to help you find what it is you’re trying to say with your photos.
AGITATE grew out of FRESH FOCUS, which grew out of the space left behind by that pulled together group of people we found at university that helped us graduate. It was set up to bring that back again to those that missed its presence, and to offer it to everyone else that got here by another route. It’s open to all that want to make work and have experienced that lonely moment of not having anyone to show your photos to and the dread of going out on your own and asking. It’s a group of people that are all in need of that quiet moment between laying out prints on the table and having someone say that they see your work for what it is, and in turn see you as well. Mostly though, in a world that is saturated with images, where feeds and reels and likes and shares replace substance with popularity and community with competition, AGITATE exists for the genuine love of photography, a belief in its ability to really see the world, and a safe pair of eyes to help find meaning in the photos we take.
