Exactly one month ago, I asked people to participate in a little portrait project. I had put out the call because I was troubled by a big dose of camera shyness. Not in the way that I don’t like my picture taken, but that I got nervous picking up the camera to take pictures.
Over the years I’ve been looking at so much photography. In the beginning, everything was beautiful and served as an inspiration. However, gradually, my taste in photography developed. Some of the things I liked before, suddenly lost their appeal. Unluckily, this included 99% of the images I had shot myself.
When I started running copypasteculture and when I worked at Foam Fotografiemuseum it got even worse. Great photography surrounded me all the time. How could anything I tried to make ever reach the high quality of what I saw day in day out? As a result, my cameras stayed safely tucked away in my camera bag for the longest time.
To get over that, I thought it would be best to just stop thinking and start shooting. No concept, no message, no story, just portraits. That’s why I had sent out the call for volunteers via social media.
Many people spread the word and even more replied (thank you!). Some volunteers I know to a certain degree, but others are complete strangers. The sheer logistics of the thing is challenging – working out dates and times – but slowly I’m getting closer to the end of the list.
The first developed rolls of film are also coming in. I like some of the photographs I’ve shot, some I don’t like. I see good things and I see the mistakes & flaws. But that doesn’t matter. What’s important is that I’m shooting again and enjoying myself.
