I ended up on a photographer’s website earlier. It was Igor Demba if you must know. Lovely man. Wonderful artist. If you’ve never seen Igor’s work before, please check it out. It’s great. He’s great.
What I noticed while looking though, is that I wasn’t appreciating it for what it is. I was sitting there sipping my decaf oat milk latte, wondering why my work doesn’t look like that, because at that moment I felt like my brain decided to tell me that Igor’s work was nicer than mine.
Maybe you think it is nicer than mine. I don’t mind. You’d be right. That’s how art works. The viewers opinion is fact in that moment of appreciation.
Or maybe we shouldn’t be doing that and comparing the work of two artists as both can be appreciated simultaneously for their disparities and/or similarities.
Deep. To be discussed at a later date.
Anyway as I sat there and looked through, I did eventually begin to appreciate it for the wonderful soulful art that it is. And I realised I can’t make my work look like his or anyone else’s for that matter.
I can’t and I don’t want to, even in that moment of self doubt where I decided his work was nicer than mine, I know that I wasn’t wanting to make mine look like his.
It’s something we all do, I know. Or most of us at least. The human ones. We allow ourselves to get distracted because that person over there is (apparently) getting the attention we want. So that must mean their art is “better”.
I know we all peddle that old chestnut from time to time – comparison is the thief of joy. And it is. Some cliches are true even though they’re cliches.
But nowadays I think it’s surpassed comparison and become competition. Competition in the literal sense but also this strange competition for attention – “more people seem to like that person so that must mean they’re better than me”.
So… let’s make a pact together. To not only stop comparing ourselves and our art with other people, but also to stop running a non-existent race with them.
I’ll leave you with an epiphany moment I had back in 2012 when somehow I got the Mexican photographer Fer Juaristi to run a workshop in a war museum in Manchester, with a live shoot outside a bread factory…
Fer is one of the most revered wedding photographers of our time, and rightly so. Just like Igor he’s a lovely man and a wonderful artist and his work contains his heart and soul which makes it totally unique to him.
He’s also got a shedload of Instagram followers and speaks at every conference and multi-presenter workshop all over the world. In the attention competition, Fer wins hands down.
But it’s not a competition remember, that was a test.
Anyway it’s something simple and profound Fer said to all of us at that workshop back in 2012 that rings loudly in my ears to this day.
He said “I just need 20 couples a year to find me and to like what I do.”
So I remind myself this all the time when I (regularly) get lost in the attention game.
The attention game just puts ego coins in the bank. And I truly believe the higher the balance of that account, the greater the risk of artistic bankruptcy.
The 20-30 couples a year who love my work and pay me to do it at their weddings — they are the ones who put food on my kids table, clothes on their backs and a roof over our heads.
And crucially, they are the ones who enable us to continue to live a live which revolves around art and creativity.
So let’s stop comparing and competing. Let’s keep on clicking and creating instead. Striving always to find that place inside of us that our work comes from.
Focus on you, the rest is just noise.
Thanks for reading!
Adam
PS – I hope Igor and Fer don’t mind me talking about them in this way! I love them both, hopefully you can see that!
PPS – Crazy feedback to the ARJ picnic from last week’s email (let me know if you didn’t get it and want a copy). Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted my penchant for a cheestring so publicly. The ARJ picnic is now patent pending.
PPPS – Rest in peace Taylor Hawkins. A heart twice the average size is no surprise. Rock and Roll won’t be the same without you.
