Creation vs Re-Creation

It is impossible and exhausting to try to create the created. As Joni Mitchell once said, "A painter does a painting and he does a painting that's it. He's had the joy of creating it...but nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint the Starry Night again man!' He painted it- that was it!"

Sure, you can attempt to paint the same subject with the same paints but you can't paint the same thing twice. It's lame to want a photographer to paint you just like she painted the client before you and it's lame to be the photographer who tries to paint what someone else paints. Re-creation is futile, completely.

The cool thing about being a photographer is that work has the potential to be different every single time. Sure dudes, you can get stuck in repetitious ruts but the images are still different. A photographer's vision and perspective has the potential to superimpose themselves creatively and entirely every time, and every time that vision can be expressed through the variables of color, pattern, place, faces, light, composition, etc. My fascination with impermanence, timelessness, imperfection, reality and impressions can be represented in every image I choose to show or I can just take pictures. Pictures that say nothing, feel nothing, do nothing.

I do best when I ask myself, "Why do I like that?" to explore what I am drawn to. I think this is the only way I can close the gap between taking photos I hope my client will like and taking photos I am proud of. Get the picture? Sure, you get it. You get your own. No need to try and get someone else's.