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I spent last Saturday morning photographing under the rain. When I woke up, looked out the window wrapped in a wool blanket and saw the grey and wet unwelcoming world, the only thought I had was: why did I book that workshop? It took one of the many voices living inside me, the artist’s, to rise above all the others, urging me to jump on my bike and cross the IJ river to meet with my fellow workshop goers at the Amsterdam Ferry Festival. The title of the workshop, Inner Landscapes was a beautiful invitation of photographer Anna Swagerman which I am happy I did not ignore. So I crossed the river. I decided to bring my CANON 5D Mark III to the workshop. It’s a camera I had for years and never took the time to learn all the technical possibilities of, which has frustrated me many times as the results of certain images I made never matched the ones I had in my own eye or mind. That feeling led me to put the camera aside and go for my more manageable Sony or the iPhone camera year after year. It was comfortable to allow the fear of failure take over. My hesitation went away when I booked this workshop - which came into my inbox via the Van Gogh Museum’s newsletter. Something about Swagerman’s invitation to explore inner landscapes liberated me from the fear of not being good enough at taking photographs with a camera worthy only to those who would have tamed it. I still felt the need to mention during the introductory round that “I don’t consider myself a photographer”. The artist voice in me disagreed and took matters in their own hands. I’ve let go of the discourse surrounding who is or is not considered a photographer, by whom and under which conditions, and I just went out in the rain to explore those inner landscapes we just spoke of in the workshop space. Back home, soaked to the skin from the pouring rain, I uploaded the 103 shots I took into Lightroom and went for a hot shower, hoping some of the inner landscapes I saw would materialize on my screen. Most of the images were what one may call failures. To me, they are process, and they’re essential. A process which led me to select six out of them all, and create a series which I have decided to have printed on fine art paper as an edition of two: one for my own usage (which I will only print the day it will be exhibited - either in my own home or an exhibition space) and one that will be sent out for a private collection. I realise how big of a step I took away from fear, closer to freedom. I was afraid of my own technical ignorance, now I know I will learn every time I use the camera and will get better at capturing the world through my own lens. The most important is that I am now trusting my photographic work is worthy of my attention and care, and that includes being printed and shared with the world in as many different ways as I will be able to do (more on that soon…). And it really doesn’t matter which label I will use: photographer, artist, visual storyteller, multimedia maker, writer in love with images, translator of inner landscapes… as long as I will keep doing the work.
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