Photo phobia

Beach Series #49

5X5 acrylic textures

Hi All,

I know I seem to have it all together to everyone else, but shocking as it may be, there are some things I am not good at, and some things I am downright afraid of. (I am pausing here to give you a chance to absorb this stunning news.)

You know how artists hate to market their work, well that is not a fear to me as much as it is an annoyance. and a dislike. My greatest fear, well, maybe not my greatest, I mean there is the fear of having the next painting turn out to be crap and then the fear of putting your work out there, and then the fear of sounding stupid in an interview and don't get me started on the pictures they take of you and publish in magazines, books and newspapers. OK, sure, there are a lot of things I am afraid of in this career I have chosen, but I digress. The one I am talking about today is my PHOTO PHOBIA. Technically I think that means fear of the sun or light or something, but for me it is fear of taking photos of my artwork. This is really hard!!!!

All my life I have had a problem understanding the whole f-stop thing, even when I was young and my memory was good and I could still learn new things. You know, the aperture gets smaller as the number gets bigger and the light must be compensated by the yada-yada-yada-yada.... Whatever. I have tried, I really have. I've taken classes, I've practised, I even have a very supportive husband, Greg, who once drew a really good diagram to explain it to me and help me remember it (I am a visual learner). It really helped, but I didn't retain it.

Anyway, fast forward to today. My creative partner (in books, teaching, blog, Etsy, blah, blah, blah) Carlynne Hershberger had to learn to photograph our artwork for our first book(Creative Colored Pencil Workshop). I say "she had to" because if we had depended on me to do it, our publisher would still be waiting and I would be under my bed in the fetal position sobbing and mumbling to myself. You remember how in the old days, artists used slides to enter competitions and also to publish work in magazines and books. Well, ours was chosen for publication just about the time that digital photography was getting really big. Our publisher, F & W Media, gave us the opportunity to be their first authors to do all of our photos digitally. Carlynne was magnificent (we do tell each other periodically that we are brilliant or genius, but magnificent is a new word that we have not used before.) She acquired a new camera (Canon 20D) and learned to use it with very little help from me, although I did read the manual aloud to her, but the translation from Chinese was not very helpful.

Carlynne became wonderful at it and we both benefited from her expertise. Well, eventually I had to learn to do my own. So when we started our Etsy shop, she did the beginning photography to get us started and then she gave me a lesson in doing my own. I had nightmares before we got together to do this. I thought about checking myself into a hospital and having a triple by-pass instead. I needed a root canal, but didn't have the money to pay for it. My other alternative was to change my name and leave town with no forwarding address. But, being the responsible person that I am, I did show up. She was so kind to me (I get teary just thinking about it now) and she gently lead me through the steps and then I realized it wasn't nearly as bad or as hard as I had thought. In fact, I knew right then, that I had nothing to fear but fear itself! (At this point, there are angels singing and a ray of strong sunlight beating down on my head.) I would like to take a moment here to thank, not only Carlynne, but the person who invented digital photography.

So, what have I learned from this experience? That I am not stupid, or old or have a bad memory? No, that is not what I learned, in fact I may be all those things. But I did learn that fear is of the unknown, once it becomes known, the fear can disappear quickly. It was my mind telling me I could not do this, in short I was not good enough. We are all good enough, we just have to tackle our fears head on. And if you are an artist, you need to learn this fast, because unfortunately, our art lives are filled with possible phobias (this post, paragraph 2, lines 3-7). I wish I could give the author credit, but cannot remember where I read one of my favorite quotes: If you are not frightened and depressed, you are not growing as an artist.

Love and peace to all,
Kelli