Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: fear

  • Vulnerable

    Vulnerable

    Being an artist is creative and rewarding. It is also a position that is vulnerable and lonely. I made my career in an objective, logical engineering world. In contrast, the artist’s world I live in now is based on opinion and perception. I have never felt so vulnerable and out of control.

    Lone-wolf

    A popular view is that the artist is a lone wolf. Fiercely independent, self-sufficient, going his own way regardless of what anyone thinks. To a certain extent, this is true. I think an artist has to have the fortitude to maintain his independence in the face of adversity and pressure to conform.

    Unfortunately, there is a cost to being this lone wolf. A lone wolf is, well, alone. He is isolated, vulnerable, having to go it alone. It’s a position where you don’t have a support infrastructure. You don’t really have people to build you up when you are knocked down. You don’t have people to take care of things and offload work from you – you have to do everything yourself. This can get debilitating at times.

    Some artists maintain a network of mentors, confidants, and collaborators. I envy them.

    Courage

    For me, one of the hardest things is to have the courage and determination to keep pressing on. I am not a natural marketer. It is hard to “put myself out there”. Making noise for myself is a very uncomfortable thing. Especially when I am continually getting knocked down emotionally and passed over.

    An artist has to believe in himself. To believe he has a vision and a message that people should pay attention to. This has to carry him through rough patches when things seem to be going against him. When you seem to be a lone voice in the world, this can be hard to maintain.

    Coming in in the morning with a fresh resolve can be trying. Sometimes it is difficult to say “I am an artist; I believe in myself and know I have something to bring the world”. And act on it.

    Rejection

    Rejection is a part of life, especially for an artist. We have to expect it, even seek it. If you are not being rejected, you’re not trying.

    But it takes a toll. I think even the strongest pay an emotional cost when we are rejected. It’s like being back in school and not being picked for the team or not receiving the scholarship or just not being asked to sit at the table with the “cool” kids. You know it is going to happen sometimes, but it still leaves a bruise.

    With rejection the world seems to be telling me I’m not good enough. That I don’t stack up to the competition. That I probably should just give up.

    But the world is a bitter and heartless place. I have to shrug it off and believe my own inner voice rather than a message some stranger is giving me. I have to believe in myself, even when others don’t.

    Indifference

    Possibly even worse than rejection is indifference. When my art seems to not matter at all to anybody. When everything seems to be futile.

    This is another tool the world uses to try to crush the aspirations of most artists. and it works a lot of the time.

    I sometimes think I would rather have someone write me and tell me they hate my work. At least they took a moment to acknowledge it. (No, it’s an exaggeration. I’m not really asking you to tell me how much you hate what I do.)

    Will power

    This has been much more negative than I usually am. Vulnerability can do that. Rejection and isolation can be cumulative.

    But I think the real point I am trying to make is that these things will come. They happen to everybody. The question is, what am I going to do about it?

    I said an artist has to believe in himself. That is kind of trite, but nevertheless true. Being vulnerable or discouraged or feeling isolated are part of what we have to accept if we call ourselves an artist. If we are feeling down are we going to pick ourselves up, metaphorically, and find the will to go on? Or are we going to pack it in and stop doing our art? It is our call. Nobody else can decide.

    I know of artists who claim to seek rejection and collect rejection letters. Good for them, if they are telling the truth. But good for them regardless, because the attitude is right.

    If I apply for something and get rejected, I have to understand that just means I was not right for that exhibit or the juror was looking for a different style or the gallery has a different culture. The rejection was not a legal certificate from a higher authority saying “you’re not an artist and you should give this up immediately.”

    I am an artist. I believe in what I do. That has to come from inside. If I listen to what other people say I will doubt myself. If I doubt myself, it will inhibit my creativity and my ability to express my vision and my will to apply for that next opportunity. I’m a lone wolf.

    Vulnerable

    Back full circle to the idea of vulnerability. Yes, I am vulnerable in the sense that I am out there, on the edge, exposed to the world, all alone. I have to take the hits and survive. I have to have a strong enough belief in my ability that it can carry me through the rejections and indifference.

    This can be one of the hardest parts of the art world. Many artists are introverts and somewhat shy and self doubting. We have to get over ourselves and put our work out there for the world to deal with. Rejection will come, but we have to go on if we believe we have something worthwhile.

    I will close with a favorite quote from Theodore Roosevelt, popularized recently by Brene Brown:

    It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

    To me, this is what it is about. I have to be in the arena to become what I want to be.

  • Indoor Time

    Indoor Time

    Most of us are having to adjust to rather extreme temporary measures in our daily lives. Our focus has become on indoor time.I won’t say it is a “new normal” because I hate that phrase and it is tossed around too easily.

    This has caused most of us to spend way more time indoors than we are used to and are comfortable with. As photographers, we are accustomed to being out shooting a lot. So what are you doing with your new indoor time? I’ll give you a brief rundown of some of what I am doing.

    Filing

    I hate to admit it, but I was thousands of images behind in sorting and tagging and grading. I have spent MANY hours in Lightroom recently trying to get caught up. I’m not there yet, but I have dealt with thousands of images. That is tiring.

    But it also can be rewarding. I have run across a lot of images I had mostly forgotten about. It makes me feel good to find these pockets of images I really like. It encourages me that maybe I have a history of making decent images. Plus, they remind me of good times and great experiences I have had.

    Do I really need to do all this detailed filing? Probably not. But it is critically important (to me) to go through the sorting and filtering process to narrow them down to the set of images I am proud to show to anyone. For me, this takes several rounds of serious evaluation and making hard choices. It is very difficult for me to “let go” of images I really like that don’t make the cut.

    Post-processing

    Along with filing comes post-processing. This seems like a never-ending struggle. Trying to catch up on thousands of images that have not been processed yet brings with it the opportunity to edit many of them.

    I am constantly learning new techniques for processing in Lightroom and Photoshop. So this is a great opportunity for me not only to catch up, but to practice some new methods and get more efficient. And my values and vision seems to evolve all the time.

    I make it harder on myself because I am often not content to process an image and have done with it for all time. No, every time I take a new look at many of my images I have a different inspiration about what to do with a few of them.

    So between trying to catch up on a backlog of lots of images and re-processing many that I see differently now, I have a lot of work. Luckily I enjoy the post-processing in the computer. I view it as one of the creative parts of photography. But it is very time consuming.

    Backup

    Yes, I am a computer nerd. Well, I used to be. Now the computer is just a tool. I no longer have an intimate relationship with them. But as I have written in the past, I am fanatical about backup. This has been an opportunity to review my system and make some changes.

    I have levels and levels of backup. One of the last levels is rotating storage offsite (where they’re then backed up again. ☺ ). My offsite disks have been too small for a while to hold all of my main catalog. I had to restrict them to the “most important” images. That has been uncomfortable. It was a chink in the armor. So I took this opportunity to replace the offsite storage with larger disks. Now I can backup everything in my main catalog to each of them.

    WD makes some great little portable disk drives. This MyPassport drive seems very reliable and pretty fast. And the physical size is amazing for 5 Terabytes of storage. I do not receive any benefit from referring this. I included an Amazon link, but, honestly, I would recommend finding another vendor.

    Warning, when you attach a 5 T disk to your system don’t think you are going to just copy your files to it and be done in a few minutes. If your computer can transfer data to the backup at a rate of 100MBytes/sec, it will take a few days to do the initial copy. Subsequent updates only take minutes, because they typically only affect a few GBytes. There is 3 orders of magnitude between a GByte and a TByte.

    Study and read

    For an introvert like me, free time means reading or study time.

    One of the benefits of the popularity of photography is that there is limitless information available, online and in books. You remember those things printed on paper, don’t you?

    Ah, but that glut of information brings other problems. Who do you trust? How to separate the useful from the useless? There is a lot of bad or useless information out there. You can learn good information from a bad example, but I don’t recommend it unless that is the only alternative.

    I admit to being rather jaded. I am technical and creative and very experienced. It is hard for me to find someone I trust to give me good information. I don’t want to come across as arrogant. This is something that happens with lots of experience in a field.

    Two instructors I can recommend who consistently do great training are Dave Cross and Ben Willmore. They are fantastically deep in their knowledge of the tools and are good communicators. Plus, they mostly teach how to use and understand the tools, not “cookbook” methods for copying the results of someone else.

    So, in the spirit of good disclosure, I have been spending a lot of time on CreativeLive, KelbyIOne, The Nature Photography Network, John Paul Camponigro’s web site, and B&H’s archive of videos.

    I have also been reading books for inspiration, such as Creative Black & White, by Harold Davis, and More Than A Rock, by Guy Tal.

    Study your equipment

    I believe intimate knowledge of your equipment pays off. If you can’t use your tools rapidly and with little thought they will get in your way rather than help you be creative. This is an opportunity to spend time practicing with your camera.

    I moved to a mirrorless body about a year ago. I confess that I have struggled with it some. It is not as convenient and user friendly as a larger and more mature DSLR. I am comfortable using it for normal day to day shooting situations, but I could not pass the blindfold test like I could with previous bodies. That is, I could not reliably set the camera up for a particular shooting situation blindfolded (or in the dark).

    I love the quality of the images from the mirrorless camera, but I am having to spend extra time making it natural and intuitive to use. I am working on that as part of my down time.

    Get out and shoot

    I may make some people mad for saying this, but I am out shooting almost every day. Our officials here kindly allow us to be out walking, biking, etc. I take advantage of it to wander with my camera. I try to get out walking 2-4 miles a day. It is very good for me health-wise and for my sanity. Plus I like to practice shooting every day. Sometimes I even get a decent image.

    I also occasionally jump in the car and drive out of town for some photos. For instance, we had an unusually large snow last week (as I am writing this). I was out all afternoon shooting. It was great and very refreshing! For the sticklers, I was never within 20 feet of another person. But then, I do not worry about Covid and I am not concerned about catching it when I am out and about. I refuse to be paralyzed by fear.

    Time well spent

    These are some of the things I am doing in my “confinement”. I hope I will look back on it as time well spent. A chance to regroup, catch up on some things, refresh and recharge. I hope you are able to make productive use of your time indoors, too.

    Let me know how you are doing. I would love to hear from you. Sign up to receive notifications. Please visit my gallery site and let me know what you think.

    I hope you are well and I’m glad you’re reading! Even if it is because you are bored. 🙂

  • Behind a Mask

    Behind a Mask

    It seems like we are all looking at the world from behind masks now as the Covid-19 virus keeps most people locked in. There are other masks, too. It can be a metaphor for several things.

    I’m going to talk about fear and isolation. But I want to be clear, if you or someone you are around is in a vulnerable health situation, then you absolutely should take precautions. I’m going to address the wider population.

    Photoshop masks

    I have used layers and masks in Photoshop for longer than I can remember. Masks are a great invention here. They allow very selective and detailed editing or modification of anything in an image.

    Photoshop masks are one of significant features that allows Photoshop to be the most powerful and respected image editing software available. I will go out on a limb and say that virtually all serious Photoshop users use masks.

    But there is something special about Photoshop masks in regard to the metaphor of masks as I am talking about them today. Photoshop masks are completely a private, hidden thing. I use the masks as much as I choose to, but it is not visible or obvious to anyone looking at my image. It is a private thing between me and my image. No one knows if I used a mask and no one tells me I need to use one. No one cares, unless I’m “talking shop” with a colleague. Photoshop masks are not something we wear in public.

    Face mask

    Now days, though, most of us have to confront wearing physical face masks when we are in public. Fear of this horrible virus has made the world go crazy. Fights have broken out, even shootings over whether people are or are not wearing them. In some places you could be fined or even arrested for not wearing one. Even if not, you may be shunned or abused for not wearing one.

    What is this doing to us as a society? What is it doing to the kids? What precedents are being set for the next supposed crisis?

    How did a simple piece of cloth wrapped over our face come to mean so much to so many people?

    Fear

    Fear drives this panic. The media pumps it and thrives on it. Anything that causes widespread fear uncertainty and doubt generates ratings and revenue for the media. For weeks, every single story on my local media was about the virus. Follow the money. Only recently will something like a gory killing get a spot in the news.

    But the media is giving most people what they want. People have decided that this panic is important enough to control their lives. It is too dangerous to go outside or be with people. Something bad may happen. Better to huddle inside. Don’t go to work. Don’t go to school. Don’t go shopping. Don’t support you local businesses.

    It might not be safe.

    Death isn’t the enemy, fear is.
    Ellen Gilchrist

    Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also in risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business.
    Donald Rumsfeld

    Speaking of the percentages, let me put some of this fear in context. As an Engineer in a past life, I look at data. Based on numbers published in the Washington Post on May 18 2020, the probability of you dying of the Covid virus in the US is roughly 0.0003 right now (90,991 death out of roughly 300,000,000 people).

    You are much more likely to die of heart disease or cancer. You are at greater risk when you get in your car and drive somewhere. And over 60,000 people die in the US each year from the flu – that is every year. All depressing to think about, but there is always a non-zero probability of you dying at any time. You could be struck by lightning or hit by a meteorite.

    But we shut down the whole world because we are afraid of this particular problem.

    Hiding

    So we hide. Being alone or just with your immediate family, who you can’t get away from, must be safe. Safety is everything.

    Going to school is not safe. Going to work is not safe. Visiting with your neighbor is not safe. Eating in restaurants is not safe. Going out walking is not safe. If you get a package you ordered from Amazon, let it set a couple of days before opening it, just in case. To be safe.

    Put up the shields, our face masks, when in doubt.

    Where did our faith in these little patches of cloth come from? A mask won’t do much to protect you from the virus unless it is made from appropriate materials and is thick enough. Very few of our homemade masks are effective. A mask won’t do much good unless it fits properly. Few do. And if you have facial hair, like I do, they are generally useless.

    For the most part, these have been sold to us by the authorities as a talisman to help us believe we are doing something to stay safe. Like most juju, they are mostly for making us feel good.

    Our masks are something to hide behind. To hold up to the world as an amulet to ward off evil spirits. Not necessarily a placebo, but close.

    But at what cost?

    Isolation

    Huddling at home, not going out except for emergencies, shunning all people – these things have a cost that may be greater than the cost of getting the virus.

    Despite all our wonderful technology, society and human beings work on personal interaction. It is critically important to interact with people. A smile or a touch means much more than a long email. Seeing a friend and shaking hands is vastly better than any text message. No matter how many emojis you use.

    A mask is a barrier. It is a wall. It says I am afraid of you so I am distancing myself. It says I assume you are dangerous so I am keeping away. It says that my perceived safety is more important than whatever interaction we might have had. It says I am retreating within my shell where I don’t have to be with you. Because I am afraid.

    And on a more personal level, it says I am willing to live my life under cover, huddled indoors, in fear because the world around me may not be safe.

    If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I’m about to do today?
    Steve Jobs

    I’m not willing to hide from life and people. I want to use all I can of today.

    Normal

    Where we are is not a “new normal”. It is a temporary panic. A world ruled by irrational fear. I hope that a long term effect of this is to make people re-evaluate their priorities. Decide what is really important.

    Jobs are important, but it should not be the center of your life. Entertainment is fun, but only as an occasional distraction.

    What are the things you have really missed during this lockdown? Is it family, friends, socializing with people? Even visiting with the people at work? Hugging or shaking hands with friends? Going to church with your people and singing and praying together? Sitting around people at a restaurant, being awash in the social interaction? Getting together with a group of friends and just talking?

    We have been denied this things. We have been told that perceived safety is more important than people. I believe our leaders have been wrong. Their fear for the safety of a few has caused massive distress for the many. We need to help our world get back to a better place.

    We need to stop hiding behind a mask and get back together with people. We need to evaluate what our priorities are and work to make sure they happen. Living in fear is unhealthy.

    Post-Script

    Many of you may not agree with me. That is OK. I hope to generate thought, not necessarily praise. Since I set out to be more self-disclosing in this blog I thought it important to say something about the largest event going on in the world around us right now. I promise, though, that writing about current events will not be a regular thing.

    I value your comments and inputs. Let me know how it is going for you and what you think!