The Importance Of Growth

Yesterday did a photo club meeting (I belong to 2 groups), I was quite disappointed with the work shown. The photos never seem to change, week in week out, year in year out it's the same same stuff. If we had had the meeting 5, 10 or 20 years ago the photos would almost be identical, and 10 or 20 years from now the the pics will still be the same. After seeing great original work (photography, painting, drawings, sculpture) in museums, gallery's, books and magazines my tastes have changed (hopefully grown). Infrared or sunset landscapes,  bottles in sunlight, pics of flowers and average soso portraits fail to effect me now.  Most of the work I see in the club seems to have no meaning, no substance, no core to it, it could be produced in an infinite number of clubs by a infinite number of people. There was no passion in what I saw yesterday, no message outside of that's pretty and well composed. What is at the core of the work? Why it it being created? Where is its heart?

I think I am expecting too much out of the club, the people involved in the group are older folks, hobbyists who do photographs for the fun of it. For group members the creation of new photographs is a distraction from life's other problems, a fun way to pass the time, they are not looking to make ground breaking art.

 I feel I am near the end of my time with this club, I am not getting much out of the meetings now.

This viewing boredom thing is probably a two way street, my stuff does not have much of affect on the groups people. Work that has been collected and well received by artists, jury's and curators gets pretty much ignored by groups members. I invited 9 people from the club to my first solo show at the Kaasa next year,  I will have to see how many people show, if no one shows its a sign no one is really interested in my photographs.

I will probably leave the group after this year. I owe a lot to the people in the club, they have helped me in so many many ways but I guess all good things come to an end, we all need to grow and change over time. More thought needed on this.

Note* (added later) This post led to some dissent from a club member, which is actually a good sign, it shows passion.

I am probably getting a bit to arrogant and full of myself with this blog entry but it all seems to be so true, I feel I am just being honest. When I send out messages to members to talk photography, when I bring up any other artists at meeting, my attempts are met with silence (people are polite but indifferent). When I am over critical of a print (with the hope of the same honest criticism will be given my work) people in the group do not like it. When something is not liked during a critique club members use terms like interesting, almost all the criticism lacks emotional truth (art should be exciting and emotional), the honest critiques (including negatives) are spoken softly and very subtly. Some members can only say positive things, everything has a positive spin on it, they never see a print they don't like. The result of this limited honesty is very little changes in the work or artist, the photographs stay the same, never advancing and yet they receive the same inane applause, inspiring  the photographer to produce more of the same old tripe. When people are not pushed, they shoot the same mediocre stuff year end year out. How many flowers, sunsets and in-fared landscapes can we possibly look at?

I am not sure photographs is a proper term for what happens in the group now.  Over 1/2 of what is shown in the club are not photographs in my opinion they are digital artistic collages, they are multiple photographs made into one, or one moment changed so drastically it resembles nothing of the original decisive moment. The group is much more an art group now and no longer a photography club.

I guess I take this all way too seriously and speak too loudly. In both the clubs I belong to I get into trouble when I push other members too hard, when my feelings for photography comes on too strong. Most people just do this whole photo thing as a fun aside,  for me it's different, I am trying to create an important lasting body of work. I take photography very seriously and sometimes I have trouble holding that hunger in.

I guess what Quinton from the Luz Gallery said to me a while back (over 1 year ago) needs to be done, "Maybe it's time to move away from the club stuff."