Logos

I’ve spent the majority of my time as a photographer being incredibly self-conscious about my work. If I had to guess I would say it’s probably equal parts “comes with the territory” and my innate personality, helped along by a healthy (or rather, unhealthy) dose of listening to too many photographers criticize their peers’ work.

The thing is I don’t really question whether my work is good. I feel like I’m technically proficient enough to finally call myself a photographer now (I avoided this for so long) and I’ve gotten enough positive feedback from people who like images here and there to feel confident that I don’t suck. Not entirely at least. What I question is whether my work is worth anything. I question - constantly - whether it has value.

And let me just go ahead and say right now: I don't say any of this looking for compliments or affirmation of any kind. I have all but entirely left social media because I hate the idea that it’s so easy to find our validation in the likes of others. I don't need to know that other people approve of what I’m making. But what I want is to believe, to feel, that when I share what I make I’m offering up something worthy. Something of value.

But then that gets me thinking: How do we define what is valuable?

In my last post I mentioned that I was reading Sean Tucker’s book, The Meaning in the Making. One of the things from the book that has resonated deeply with me is the idea of creation as Logos: the generative principle of the universe, implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning. An eternal and unchanging truth. Truth with a capital T.

For me this is where the value of creation lies, in its ability to tell a Truth. Even if we can’t always expressly state in words what that Truth is. In Sean’s words:

“Logos is our attempt to describe the Truth we all somehow know but struggle to articulate, because when we manage to, even in small ways, it brings us comfort and a feeling of togetherness, knowing that this experience of life — with its joys and hardships — is shared by all…

It’s not a neat or easy process. So many artists will say the same thing about their work: ‘Sometimes I’m not sure what I’m aiming at, or exactly how to get there, but I know it when I see it.’ Whether we say it obliquely or directly, subtly or overtly, whether we arrive there deliberately or intuitively, art is most powerful when we are speaking the Truth with the things we make and speaking Order into the collective Chaos.”

I read this little excerpt while sitting on the beach, on the first true vacation (the relax and do absolutely nothing that you don’t want to do kind) that I’ve had in six years. Six. Years. It was long overdue. After the stress and chaos of the last few months the time free of responsibility coupled with a venue entirely new to my lens were exactly the thing I needed to spark my desire to make pictures again. And I made a LOT. But with every single image made I thought about the passage above. What Truth was I telling in the pictures?

See this is the thing I have always wanted in my work, and the reason I think I am often hard on myself and question the value of what I make. I used to see images of people, of activists and immigrants, of those who are brave and those who are fascinating and of places that matter and moments that will live forever in our collective memory, and I believed that those were the things I had to capture in order to create something worthwhile. But I’m not so sure I believe that anymore.

Small moments can offer just as much Truth, and can resonate just as deeply. Some of the photos of other photographers that mean the most to me are often simple, everyday moments. They are images that I have a visceral response to; I see them and I see the Truth in them. And sometimes I may not even be able to put that Truth into words. But I recognize that it’s there and it draws me in. It brings me comfort.

When I consider my work in this light I begin to think that perhaps I do ok. Perhaps, at least occasionally, I manage to capture a bit of Truth, and perhaps the recognition of that Truth will bring someone else comfort. And that definitely feels worthwhile.