A Theory on Photography and Art

A very dear friend and mentor said once that nothing good has ever come without sacrifice. I have this theory on photography as an artform and what makes it good. I have rarely seen any fashion photography that I liked. I forget where I heard it, but someone once said that part of what makes photography great is the relationship between model and photographer. This makes a lot of sense. After reading an interview with an excellent photographer today, this made even more sense. In the interview, she cited the level of comfort between her and her models. She said that every model she has is a good friend of hers.

She creates very organic, very honest art which a lot of artists cannot claim. She takes imperfect subjects and makes them beautiful. Many can't even take a perfect subject and accomplish this. This, coupled with the already implanted thought is leading me dangerously close to the conclusion that I must be in love with every person I photograph. Perhaps it's my still young hormones overreacting to a pretty girl, but I see someone I want to photograph and I begin to ponder over them and a strange relationship is created. I suddenly care about whoever it is and I want to comfort their hurts and to be their friend. This is probably a new outlet for my Knight in Shining Armor complex, but it's real as far as I can tell.

Is that a such a crazy idea, though? As a Christian, I am called to love all and I've recently found this easier than I ever have in the past. As an artist, who strives for excellence and wants to create beautiful art, is it then such a strange thing to wholeheartedly love my subject? Perhaps it's my masochistic nature wanting to go through the throes of gaining and losing a love every time I have a photoshoot, but if nothing good has ever come without sacrifice then is it such a large request? Whatever feelings I can feel pale in comparison to what Jesus felt on the cross, so am I really even sacrificing that much?

With all I've learned over the past few years, I've concluded that I can't live reservedly. I want to say that I gave everything I had for what I cared about. If that includes falling in love with every person that I photograph, so be it. If I were to be picky, I would have to differentiate between the three Greek words for love and then decide which one I'm talking about, but I've never been fond of differentiating between them anyway. Love is love. I feel like this paragraph reads pretty self-indulgent and self-insistent, but it's how I feel. I've also heard that all artists are narcissists. Not sure if I believe that, but it sounds possible.

Love,
Colton

P.S. Here's the Flickr page of the aforementioned artist. Here's my Flickr if you're interested. I've not been keeping up with it as much as I should, I'll probably around to organizing it and uploading all of my stuff soon. Not even sure if I want to, though, since there's so much crap on there and any actual art photographer dislikes that place.