Winning Some and Losing Others

First of all, an update on the Echo Gallery show. The opening is actually a week later than I have been announcing here. The opening reception is Saturday night February 18th from 8 to midnight. There will also be a second reception a week later on February 25th from 8 to midnight. My photography will be on display there until May 18th. A nice long run.

I'm feeling odd again today... so I thought I would write a little.

I bumped into a good friend of mine on the street on Saturday. It was good to see him outside and I'm sure he was thinking the same thing when he saw me. Robert is one of the most incredible graphic designers I've ever known. One of the best in Chicago if not the country. We've both been under an incredible amount of pressure to be creative and make deadlines. When I asked him how he was doing he said he felt a little shellshocked. And I thought that was a very appropriate word to use.

I know I've been a little on edge lately, barely holding it all together. I don't feel like myself. I haven't really felt like myself for a few weeks now. I'm finding it hard to remember things. I'm in a fog a lot of the time. I'm not sure if my creative work is really up to my standards the last few weeks. Maybe it is and I just am too tired to see it. I know that's been the case in the past. Sometimes my creativity is instinctual and it functions on it's own even when I'm not connecting with it on a conscious level. But shellshocked. That sounds about right to me at the moment.

I'm not a lazy person by any means. Whatever the opposite of lazy is, that's probably a better definition of who I am. So when I have to let go of something that I'm trying to achieve, it's really a disappointment. I feel like I'm letting myself down.

Last Monday morning, as I was going through the list of things that needed to be accomplished before evening, it became clear that there was no way I was going to be able to do all of it. One of my new near term goals is to have a photography exhibit in a Paris gallery within two or three years. I know in order to do that I need to learn to speak french much better than I currently do. In addition to everything else going on in my life, I've been taking evening classes at Alliance Françias Chicago.

Anyone who has attempted to learn a new language knows that you build on what you know as the class proceeds. If you fall behind, it makes it increasingly difficult to learn new words and sentence structure because you're building on a shaky foundation. I did very well in my level one class, but by the time I began my level two class, there was no time to even complete homework assignments, let alone drill myself on new a growing vocabulary list and more advanced pronunciation that really required an hour or two per day of focused practice. The lack of sleep certainly wasn't helping that either.

So after a good talk with Ryan, we decided I needed to let go of my french lessons for the time being. I could pick them up again after the Echo show was up and running. It was a hard decision. One I'm still not happy with even though I don't think there was an alternative at this time. I hate even saying the phrase, "I had to drop my french class." It really hurts. When I walk by Alliance Français and see the lights on in the evening, I know I want to be in there learning.

I've wanted to learn french for some time. I remember a few years ago sitting in the audience of one of the touring shows of Cirque du Soleil with my good friend Laura, just captivated by the powerful imagery playing out in front of me and deciding that one day I would photograph one of their shows. Since Cirque is based out of Montreal, I know that to even approach them speaking english would be fairly bad form. And so the seed was planted. By the time Morgan and I got back from Paris last year I knew it was time to stop talking about learning french and actually do it. And I was on my way... almost.

As I sat in class, mentally out of breath, struggling with things that would have been so easy if I had managed to give myself the time to study, it was so frustrating. I'm not stupid, but I felt that way. So I wrote both of my profeseurs a long email explaining my situation and promised I would be back. I intend to keep that promise.

I really make an effort to keep balance in my life. There is the work part which is necessary, but there also needs to be time for friends, time for growth and learning and time for myself to relax, so I can make important decisions about what I want my life to be with a clear head. It has been a series of battles the last few months. Winning some and losing others. French was a painful casualty. Every week I'm away from that beautiful language, it's going to be harder for me to pick it back up again. I'm motivated to get back to it as soon as possible.

My walking schedule has also been not all it could be. I've been getting so little sleep that it seems like when the alarm clock goes off it's easy to acquiesce to an extra half an hour of sleep in exchange for a cab ride to wherever I have to be first thing in the morning instead of walking there. But it's been taking it's toll. I know I don't feel good when I do that. I know I'm not sliding backwards yet in my quest to maintain a healthier body because I'm still eating very well, but I know if I don't get in several miles of walking in every day, I'm not going to make the progress I want to either and I have many miles to go before I'm truly heathy.

It's finding the balance. The gallery exhibition is of primary importance to me right now, so I'm willing to cut myself a little slack because I'm only human. I've also been so consumed with work lately that last week I made it a point to go out with friends a few times even when I knew there was more work to be done. I thought it might help me regain some of that elusive balance. It remains to be seen if I feel a little more whole or not as a result. It's still a little foggy in my head right now. Still more confusion than I'm comfortable with.

I'm shooting a lot again, which is really vital, but some of that confusion from the other areas of my life are drifting into that as well. I had an uncharacteristic moment during a shoot with Morgan on Saturday as I was racing to get a specific shot before the sun moved out of position. The days are so short this time of year and perfectly sunny days that coincide with my shoots have been elusive. My frustration spilled out a bit trying to set up a number of mirrors to reflect the light specifically to where I wanted it to be. At a late diner at the end of our long shoot day, Morgan commented that she had never seen me lose it like that during a shoot. Frankly, I don't remember that ever happening to me either in the past. She told me she had never heard me say the word "fuck" during a shoot, and I was using it a lot chasing the sun around the studio.

Ironically, the good news was since the days are so short at this time of year, that by 4pm, there was no sun to worry about anymore and the rest of the shoot went off very well, because we could actually slow down and really concentrate on what we were doing. We both agreed that even though I usually love shooting in natural light, the best images that day happened in artificial light.

So the week ahead.

The test prints for the show turned out very well and the final large prints are being made at this moment. We're framing the two themes in two different ways, one a traditional matte and glass, and the other mounted in a way that makes it look more like a canvas on the wall. It should be interesting to see how they look together in a proper gallery setting.

I also have to decide if I'm going to have one of my hard cover photography books reprinted in quantity to sell at the exhibit. That order will need to be placed in the next few days if that is the case. I'll be tempted to revise/update it, but in the quest for balance, there probably isn't time. We'll see.

The internet is proving to be an interesting tool to assist in finding new ways to create my work. The gallery prints are being done near San Diego, the digital files being sent there and soft proof samples sent back the same way. The framing of the large prints will be done in California as well, with the smaller 16x20 images being done here in Chicago.

Today I just received communication back from a lab in Minneapolis that will be most likely be handling the printing of my monthly postcards, which was always an incredible drain on my time to print hundreds of those myself. Suddenly I don't feel at the mercy of only working with people and labs in Chicago if I feel I'm not getting the service I deserve. The world has gotten a lot smaller and I don't have time for anything less than the best efforts and attitudes. FTP servers and overnight shipping make hundreds or thousands of miles away seem like a walk around the block.

And no, I don't have the time to be writing a long blog entry such as this one today. But I find that writing what I'm feeling is another way to vent the pressure I've been under the crush of as of late. Balance.