I've been wanting to try my hand at whatever it is I think Street Photography is, so this last week on my way into the office I brought my camera. I slung it around my neck and tried to love my body as it bounced against my belly. I took a few pictures; I was feeling proud of myself for being brave enough to press the shutter. When I snapped this one, I thought "Oh, that's going to be a good one." But it's not.
It's okay that it's not a great picture—the main point of the day was to just take pictures without being afraid that someone would yell at me—but I'm still frustrated. Frustrated because there's something about it that I think is almost good, but I don't have the vocabulary to articulate it. I still don't know what makes good street photography and what doesn't; I just kind of know it when I see it. But it's maddening to operate like that. It's a form that fascinates and eludes me. I don't think that you have to go so far as to capture the human condition to make good street photography, but you have to do something other than what I did. I just don't know what yet.
I've been thinking about this post ever since I took that picture, and I don't know if I want to showcase some of my failure to be genuinely inspirational to people who are also struggling in a creative pursuit, or if I just want to stoke the ego of my false modesty.
I think a lot about that bit in Adventure Time when Jake says "sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something." I don't know if I'm sort of good yet, but I am sucking more often than I show.
I don't want to end this post with a call to action like "Let's all show our failures!" but, like, maybe we should show each other our rough edges more often.