thoughts on video + streetlogs update
As much as I personally enjoy consuming videos as a medium, after filming a number of vlogs I feel that from a creator point of view - videography as a medium just doesn't scratch the itch that photography does for me
I feel that video as a medium is a bit too raw for my liking? Maybe with photos I am trying to capture something more abstract and open ended, allowing the audience to interpret as they like, rather than myself forcing some meaning upon the work itself. With photos there's a sense of surrealism that I'm drawn to. It very well could be that I haven't experimented enough with video to get to that point but it just hasn't clicked the way photos did from the start
I'm glad that the effort of producing my streetlog videos brought down the resistance of just going out and taking photos- if anything that was the goal. I actually have my 4th streetlog vid filmed and mostly edited but it’s become clearer to me there’s not as much heart behind it so I’m going to let it rest and put my energy back into photos for now.
STREETLOGS
Hello it's been forever since I've written here but we're back!
I recently started documenting my photo walks in a youtube series!
I've been trying to find a way to be more consistent in going out to shoot - even if's just capturing ordinary scenes around the south bay (which can feel quite suburban despite the large concentration of tech companies). Some goals with this are - to learn and improve as I go, to be present, and most importantly enjoy the process!
Check out the pilot episode here!
current focus
Current focus - just being?
So between 2021 and early 2023 I was focused on putting out thematic projects involving sequences of images captured over separate occasions. It led to a lot of growth as a photographer as it required myself to be conscious of the flow of one photo to the next in order to tell a story and required maintaining consistency between photos. However, I felt as if my style hasn’t matured enough and decided screw it - I'm going to put all projects on pause and just focus on shooting & and draw out everything I can from each photo, regardless of the context.
Style is king and story should come naturally. I wanted to retrospectively observe my subject matter and how I handled tones & color to see what I'm instinctively drawn to. Don't overthink, it just feel it out - that's always been the creative approach that has served me best. With the drawn out projects I’ve tended to fall into the overthinking trap.
The problem with those projects was that over time, my style would keep progressing and photos between two different shoots would lack consistency, thus bringing down cohesiveness and causing myself to lose interest in continuing the project. I also realized that I'm goal oriented to a fault sometimes, which as a result I had to get myself focusing more on just being present and creating - rather than building up and then shooting down ideas in my head.
I'm still in the space of just shooting a bunch and pushing my curation and editing skills to the limit. I don't see myself going back to longer term specific projects for a while. Just trying to maximize the number of ‘usable’ photos from a single outing. Ironically, I've been seeing more consistency in my work now than I did when I was working on thematic projects. Most of my photo output these days is on IG but I will continue to trickle in work on this site so stay tuned!
Also been dipping my feet into videography recently, it’s been a nice creative outlet especially when traveling. It has its similarities to photography but I find it different enough where I can approach it casually without a perfectionist mindset.