I’ve kinda halted posting photos up here and on my Flickr a little bit ago. I’m still shooting and developing, but I’ve gotten terribly bored of tracking all my posts and comments on Flickr. Web2.0 has brought out both the bad and good in just about everybody with access to the internet. People have turned into stat junkies; each picture somebody posts and each comment they receive is just another number to add to their totals. Though my eyes light up when I see the yellow “New” light up next to my “Recent Activity” link, I’m tired of contemplating whether or not the occasional praise I get on Flickr comes from somebody who knows what they’re talking about. And though any complement is a good complement, the main purpose for my Flickr uploads is so they can be seen by people who are experienced and perhaps somewhat reputable in the field. Since Flickr isn’t an isolated entity like a website, it has a better chance of being found by such people.

After a long mental battle, I’ve decided that my peronal goal to complete a photo-a-day project isn’t in my best interest. Sure, taking a photo every day is the best thing I can do for myself as a growing artist (I’ll use the term lightly), but, as I have proven with my prior two failed attempts, I churn out a lot of crap that I’m not exactly proud of, hence my recent great purge of all the photos that I’d rather not let be seen. Why publish something that doesn’t truly reflect my intentions as a photographer? I suppose that’s the magic of such projects. People get to see somebody’s picture taking process, including all the gems and fuck-ups, and since it’s under the “experimental” label of the 365-Day project, people just shrug said fuck-ups off. What would the gem-to-fuckup ratio have to be in order to label somebody as a “good photographer?”

It’s the same “monkeys on typewriters” scenario that can be said about Garry Winogrand. He died leaving hundreds upon hundreds of undeveloped rolls of film in his house. How many of those actually contain good shots? Even if there was, perhaps, one or less gems per roll, if we looked at the contact sheets, would we see an intelligent thought process involved–series of shots that displayed a higher form or seeking and capturing? Is that even what characterizes a good photogrpaher? Most of us obviously haven’t seen every last frame on even a small portion of the film he left behind. We know him for the mind-blowing images from the various publications he’s been in (look up “Women are Beautiful” and you’ll see what I mean). I don’t mean to sit here quesitoning his reputation as a photographer (especially coming from a dude just beginning to venture out into the real world of photography), but it simply makes you wonder (what a bullshit statement to conclude such a paragraph with).

If you do not wish to trudge through a load of inner-conflict bullshit, just stop reading right here. You’ll thank me later.

The reason I’m deciding against displaying my fuck-ups (since I started with the term, I’ll end with it) in the form of a photo-a-day project is that I tend to be a huge perfectionist. I always have been, which is the reason I’ve come to stop re-reading my school essays. If I do so even once, there is a good chance I’ll end up with a smoldering lump of what used to be a fine-as-it-it essay when the due date comes around. The same has applied with shooting for me recently. I haven’t really gotten anything done since I always find something wrong, either conceptually or technically, with what I’m doing. This is what school is for, I suppose.

In less than four hours, I’ll be on a plane to Rochester, New York, where I’ll be attending school for the next three years (or more!) of my life. Hopefully. People say this too much when they know more than they think, but I honestly don’t know what to expect with this transition. I’ve never been to New York; hell, I’ve barely even stepped foot outside Califorina and its neighboring states. I suppose it was a similar case with moving to Santa Cruz (I didn’t really know anything about the area besides the constant “I heard there’s a lot of liberal counter-culture going on over there” from my comically worried parents), and I hope everything in Rochester will click as well as it did at UCSC. I can see myself very easily falling into the same “I’ll just sit at my computer for the rest of the day” hole as I did in Orange County. I suppose this is how people fall into solo drinking habits.

Without further ado, goodbye California!