It’s been a great season for photo books. Unfortunately, since I’ve setup my shelf (which isn’t quite yet in place yet, btw) I’ve been going crazy with photobooks.
After going to Santa Fe, visiting Twin Palms, Photoeye, and all of those other cool places, I’ve really been bitten by the photobook bug. Coupled with Photofest, a place where you can get out-of-print hard-to-find and otherwise hyphenated books, which as you know are, of course, of much higher quality than those lacking dashes, I’ve been a photo book buying machine. All that and I just got my tax refund too (which doesn’t help these matters any, believe me.)
One of the problems I’m struggling with now is that, since I’ve started to acquire this mass of photo books, since I’ve been (literally) pouring over all of this work, I’m starting to get a sort of photographer’s “analysis paralysis.” I’ve started to think that I cannot take a picture anymore. I keep looking at all of this “good stuff” and think how mine just doesn’t (excuse the pun) stack up.
I’m sure I’ll get over this at some point-as I’ve gotten over all of the “little slumps” I’ve been in, but, somehow, it just feels like I want to look and not touch right now. It leaves me in an odd state, actually. I’ve been shooting but just sort of letting it pile up, not uploading, not editing, just shooting and pouring over photo books.
I can already see how this is going to end though. I mean, at some point, I’m going to run out of compact flash (ya think?!? Yes, it happens to the best of us-and even the likes of me) and I’ll have to, literally be forced to, upload and critique and edit and do all of that “other stuff.” Who knows, there just might be some interesting “crap” in all of that new, untouched stuff that I’ve just let pile up like yesterday’s laundry.
Oh, the challenges of being. The sweet joys of life are stored in little 2G memory cards, stacked high yet somehow still small and compact, left to wither into some noexistant digital recycling bucket. How dare we even think of formatting that recollection away into obscurity? (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s easy. It comes and goes at the touch of a little black button.)
Until next little card to add to that pile of hot trash…
