Had a photo session this morning with absolutely no tears at all! Then I lost it after lunch when I had to decide quickly whether or not to drive almost 2 hours to get a piece of equipment before the photo store closed. I also needed things locally - and badly needed to wash my hair - so I felt pulled in three directions at once, just paralyzed. The clock was ticking....
The odd thing is that in a real crisis - a medical emergency, say - I can act quickly and rationally. (At least it seems rational at the time.) It's just these minor deadline decisions that seem to turn my brain to mush.
Finally my partner calmed me down and I realized I didn't want to make the long drive just for one thing. I did some local errands and washed my hair. Ended up having a good day.
Film photography - taking slides of my artwork (or anyone else's, for that matter) has usually involved some anxiety on my part. Everything has to be just so, or the slide isn't good. To make matters worse, my standards are much higher now than they were the last time I took slides.
When I had some enlargements made for Dona Meilach's book, The Contemporary Blacksmith, the photo lab people made comments that showed me where my shots could have been improved. And I've been collecting books and articles on photographing art, even a book just on the fine points of product lighting. I've studied on the internet and printed out many articles from there too. This is all well and good, but right now it's led to feeling overwhelmed - too many ideas, too high standards, too much knowledge - and too little experience. I need some time for my practice to catch up.
This has happened many times before, of course. When I was researching finishes, including their Material Safety Data Sheets and the chemicals in the finishes - and their environmental impacts, too - there was a period when I felt completely overwhelmed. There was too much information, too little practical solution, plus the enormous emotional impact of what I was finding out.
It happened again when I was learning SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) This is the art of matching a website's writing and descriptions, to the words people actually search for on the internet. It includes submitting the site to search engines and directories, as well as arranging links with other relevant sites. There's a lot of information available on this too - so that by the time I finished my first project I'd studied about 4 inches of single spaced printouts.
Of course, some of the information contradicts other information, in any topic. So there's that to sort through. And some sort of logical framework for the information has to be created - and finally, some practical action steps to follow. My project usually end successfully - but there are periods when the chaos does overwhelm me.
This morning as I started the photo work, still learning about what lighting arrangement will work, I tried to take some of the pressure off. What's the worst that can happen? What's at stake here?
The answer was that I could invest a lot more time, energy, and money and still not end up with good slides of my new work. Is this likely? Not really. I'm going to end up with good slides.
And I could miss the deadline for showing these new bowls at the next local gallery show, so I'd miss the holiday shopping season. That would be disappointing but not tragic.
So tomorrow - another day at Craft Photography School.
10:22:55 PM 
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