A Roadblock To My Art

As an artist the need to create is a need. It’s not a want, or an i’d like to, its something that has to happen. Now with that said, just like anything in life, there are roadblocks, that come and go. Mostly all are self afflicted, it’s the overcoming that helps to take the work to a new level. I find myself in this matrix of confusion. I haven’t shot anything really in months. There’s excuses I can make, that are probably quasi valid, but in the end, there’s no excuse for not making an image. This dark period in my work depicts a feeling of a plateau and a complete lack of direction. Of course my head is filled with numerous ideas, but none of them are ‘local’. Therefore I keep creating these scenarios in my head to only drive myself more crazy. I feel inadequate as a shooter right now, and my eyes are not ’seeing’ much of anything these days. I feel like i’ve let myself down and my compass is spinning out of control. Here’s what I do know. I’m a storyteller and always have been, that’s a trait, yet working as a photojournalist is working for peanuts. I now have a mountain of student debt and I couldn’t even work as a photojournalist because it won’t even cover the bills. Maybe I’m just being down right now. As a human and as an artist I believe this is my dukka. Based on a Buddhist ideology: “The first noble truth of the Buddha is that people experience dukka, a feeling of dissatisfaction or suffering, a feeling that something is wrong. We feel this dissatisfaction because we’re not in tune with our true nature, our basic goodness. And we aren’t going to be fundamentally, spiritually content until we get in tune” (The Sun, 01/2005, issue 349, Pg 7). I can sit here, try to extrapolate what in the hell is going on, or I can pick up a camera and take a walk.