Drained

I just finished the most intense and draining Workshop in my life, with Antoine D'Agata. He is a controversial photographer but very intense, and very human. He set a very high standard for image making and his interest is in the tension, or conflict in all of us.

Honestly, I feel at home at the Toscana Photo Workshops. I have made a lot of friends and I just wanted to have honest interactions with old friends and somehow capture that as images. But the images were not engaging. I then had to explore being. I started with nude self-portraits in the woods and this simply continued through the week. As the workshop space was too comfortable for me, I spent a night in the fields. And the night I chose was the coldest of the entire week. After the jungles in Singapore during army training, the Tuscan forest was rather plesant. I had some nice surreal portraits from my night in the forest. I saw a pretty sunrise but those images were bland.

But the pushing continued, and I tried to explore my own boundaries, where I want to go and be and where I am unable to. It was very hard, as it meant looking at the conflict in me, but in a week when I felt good. Somehow, I managed to create strong images for this workshop, but I am not putting them up on this blog. The images of conflict do come from me, but it felt more like a conceptual exercise for me because I was in a good place. If I get into a bad place again, I can then work with it as materil for photography. It will not be an exercise like it was this week, because then the conflict would be real. And then, I think I would be more willing to share the images, even if they are challenging, because for me it would come from a place that is meaningful for me.

But I wonder why it is easier to produce engaging images on inner conflict and pain than to create engaging images of happiness. Next week, I intend to attempt that. I will try to capture the essence of peace and happiness in a way that is real, not cliche postcard type stuff. Wish me luck.

And it would be ironic if a bout of conflict hits me next week when I am trying to do hapy pictures, as I had to illustrate conflict in a week I felt warm and safe!