5am thoughts

I've been thinking a lot about my photography work in the past and the reason why I stopped making it a priority in my life. Time constraint was definitely an important factor, but the reason why I didn't find a way to make time for it or push past the lack of motivation was simply because I no longer felt the need to capture moments in a frame and share them with the rest of the world. And I no longer felt that need because my viewfinder, my lens, my focus...changed.

The more I dived into my education, the more I learned about systems of oppression and social injustices, I became less amazed by the world I live in. The things I was used to photographing, small moments and pretty places, suddenly did not seem worthy of freezing in a still frame. I felt fake, almost, pressing the camera shutter at the sight of something aesthetically pleasing, because what was the point of spitting that image back out into the world? Yes, it grants the viewer some sort of visual pleasure, but beyond that, do my photographs serve any other purpose? Besides saying 'hey, this looks kinda pretty,' what other messages do these photographs even have? They just sort of sit there. They are a one-sided conversation.

I want to avoid sounding critical about photography as an artform because I do see the medium as an important one. I want to stress that photography was my first love because it allowed me to speak my thoughts with my eyes and not my mouth, and because of that it healed me in ways that I will always be grateful for. But moving forward, I think we have to be self reflective about how we use the artform and decide if we are okay with how we choose to use it.

So with that in mind, I'm trying to steer the artist part of me in another direction. I want to use this blog and document fun, mindless, aesthetically pleasing things like fashion, travel, and food, but at the same time I also want to make meaningful photographic art. In other words, I want to capture 'pretty things' but also 'ugly things', if you will--things that problematize an aspect of our world. I'm trying to figure out if I, as a single person, can use photography in two different ways and still place them on a single platform.

I apologize if these words don't make any sense to you--it's 5am and I'm not sure if I'm even making any sense to myself. Just food for thought...

Much love (and slumber),
Em