As an artist, it’s said you should never like your own work – contentment is a sign of stagnation. It may sound a bit harsh, but there is a lot of merit to be had in that statement. Often, I will feel a great deal of satisfaction with a piece upon completion. Then, after some time has passed, that satisfaction will start to wane. Little by little I begin to see the various flaws and details that I would do differently in the present moment. Additionally, shifting styles factor into those opinions too. Even with a work that is technically sound, sometimes the style simply hasn’t aged well in my eyes.
My friends are often quick to reassure me my work is good and heap on positive encouragement, but my decline in satisfaction does not stem from a negative or discouraging place. Instead, it comes from the realization that my skills have improved since making that previous artwork. Rather than feel down, it makes me happy to see my talent and aesthetic has developed in a noticeable way.
Ever since I was a kid in grade school, I’ve kept a binder book filled with my drawings. Its original purpose was to be a portfolio to share my body of work. Today, it reminds me how far I’ve come on my artistic journey. (I keep a professional portfolio now. ;]) Every so often I like to flip through that binder and revisit my older works – sometimes for a laugh at how bad they are, and always for a reminder of how I’m always moving forward with every piece.
While the contents of my binder are limited to drawings, my occasional retrospection extends to all realms of my artwork. Recently, I’ve seen these changes – both in technique and style – most notably in my photography.
Behind the lens, I’ve been experimenting with various setups and camera settings. Since I can’t seem to pin myself down to one genre of photography, I’ve been mixing and matching techniques cherry picked from the multitude of photography disciplines. . A few combinations have not yielded great results, but overall, I believe the my photos are much more interesting than they used to be. A few years back I was all about getting freeze-frame type images. My opinion at the time was flawed looking back on it now, especially when I revisit old nature photos of active elements like waterfalls and rivers. Rather than invoke the movement of a flowing waterfall with a slow shutter speed, I thought it was “so cool” to freeze it in time as if it were ice. Today, I have a much better appreciation for movement in my photos.
In front of the computer, I have been experimenting more with Photoshop and Lightroom. Taking real world dark room techniques and applying them to digital photos has made a huge difference in the outcome of my pictures. It was this difference that inspired this blog entry and lead me to contemplate the ever-changing perspective and growth of my work. Looking back at photos from just a few months ago, I can see my style is much more refined. Instead of heavy and choppy edits, I’ve pulled back the reins for more seamless and subtle changes. As a style choice, however, I’ve been running rampant with colour grading in my more recent pictures. I have been adding hues to shadows and highlights as a means of changing the overall mood of an image. For now, I am having fun doing that, however, I’m sure there will come a day when I look back on these satisfactory edits and find them to be anything but.
Even though I seem to live in this constant turmoil of loving and then hating my own work, I very much look forward to seeing my work continue to evolve. I hope these thoughts help you as well, to see the positive merit in your own past works, especially the ones you are no longer fond of. When it comes to the creative mind, growing pains never truly go away.