I practically grew up with a camera in my hand. I can remember being 9, maybe 10 years old with one of those little Kodak 110 cameras about the size of 3 or 4 Hershey bars stacked up. It used that roll of film that (to me) looked like a little sled with 3/4 of a cylinder on either side to hold both the exposed and unexposed film. By high school I had a hand-me-down Pentax K-100 35MM camera. I used it until it was stolen in college right in the middle of the semester I took my first photography class.
I could go on and on about the cameras I have owned, and/or the way digital technology revolutionized the entire practice, but I’ll spare you all that.
What I will talk about is my confidence, or lack thereof. I know that I have the skills necessary to do just about anything I set out to do. In my case it’s threefold. Shooting and editing video is muscle memory after 3 decades of the daily tv news grind. I have gotten the hang of teaching after 7 semesters. I will say that it doesn’t hurt that the things I teach deal directly with the aforementioned talents committed to muscle memory.
Then there’s still photography. It’s the thing I have the absolute most experience at… by my count 42 years give or take a year? Yet, it’s the one place that I often feel like I need to improve. There’s no doubt that I have the technical side of things down to a science, but photography is an art form. I question the quality of photos that I am told are “fantastic,” “amazing,” or “beautiful.” Sometimes it’s as though something is missing, and I can’t quite put my finger on what that something is. This is especially true in my landscape photos. Sure, they’re pretty pictures because they’re taken in pretty places, but I guess I just don’t always feel the same emotions that they solicit in others. With portrait photos, I feel like I can absolutely capture someone’s likeness, even personality. What I struggle with are poses. I’m actively working on improving that, but sometimes the panic sets in and I’m just back to that technical science of getting the mechanics of an image correct.
This leads me to a question- why do I feel like my work isn’t good enough? I know people in all walks of life, and within those people at least half of my friends and acquaintances feel the exact same way. From doctors and lawyers to teachers and other professionals all the way down to some of my community college students people doubt themselves. I’m sure that there’s a deep seated psychological reason we do so, but all of that is well above my pay grade (and desire to really understand… brains frighten me.)
Speaking of brains (I promise that this is the last paragraph and this is my segue) I was introduced to a particular philosophy by a counselor years ago. I will say that I try to hold onto some of these beliefs of the Stoic philosophers when I do doubt myself or my ability. One of the major beliefs of Stoicism is Memento Mori- literally meaning remember that you must die. The idea is that since we move closer to our deaths every day that we are alive, that it’s our duty to live each day as if it was our last. In my mind that means that not only should we serve our fellow human beings, but that we should do our absolute best to do the absolute best with each and every minute, hour and day that we have here. I never ever want to stop learning… practicing… honing my skills. Sometimes I doubt my abilities and when I do, I commit to myself to simply continue to improve.
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