Yesterday this blog had its first anniversary. In the past year I posted 41 posts on quite a variety of topics around photography and art – sometimes quite stretching the sujet. Still, I didn’t reach the one post per week I was aiming at and I still have to shape up… Among the many things I learned in writing the blog was the importance of discipline.
The only way to write regularily is to not only write if you feel like it and are inspired. At least for me inspiration doesn’t hit at regular weekly intervals. This then requires to be disciplined. And partly, this was also a reason for this blog to exist in the first place: as a tool for me to continuously and regularily reflect on what I am doing. I am deeply convinced that art is not just a pursuit but a lifestyle. It doesn’t start and end in photographing, painting and writing, it colors every thing one does. I think Japanese culture is quite right in that everything can be subject to art. Because art is not about the what but the how. And if you stick with it, art and creativity (sisters, but not the same person) will show up in everything you do. In the way you dress the table, decorate your home and what tools you use. In hindsight I realize how much of simple choices I make have become influenced by aesthetics. This applies even to mundane things like buying a new grill and placing it in the garden. But it is not limited to the look and placement of things, but extends to the aesthetics of doing. How you prepare and consume food, how you travel and how you generally handle daily chores.
This was for me, frankly, one of the more surprising outcomes of writing this blog. The insight that photography and art are not only about creating photos or work, but that they equally touch on the art of doing, or more generally the Zen of living. Going forward, I think, I will pick up more on these themes as they seem to me inseparable from the more tangible aspects of photography.
Nowadays it is quite easy to get distracted by the latest covfefe in politics and society. I often feel tempted and lured into social commentary. But while art is rooted in the present, I think its strongest quality is to not only describe what is, but what could be. Art is always (or should be in my view) an exploration of possibilities. In that respect this blog is also an attempt to reach beyond the superficial excitement of the latest news and to ask the question if there is enjoyment beyond mere entertainment (and yes horror seemingly is also a form of entertainment). But you would be right in thinking that this makes this blog also a form of social commentary, even a form of protest, although these aspects might be indirect and subtle.
Another suprise in writing this blog was that I suddenly had readers and followers beyond the circle of friends and customers and in countries as far as India and Australia. To all the readers of the blog, old and new ones, thanks for staying around and I hope we will have many good conversations in the future!