life minus facebook, week two? i guess…

i had to log on to facebook one day this week to see some photos that my son had posted of his college graduation ceremony. he called me at 4am to tell me about them and asked why i was no longer on facebook. he had quit once before, so understood my frustrations with it. it was a strange feeling though, like going back to an old, deserted high school and peeking into the old forgotten hallways. i definitely had a feeling of trespassing in a place where i had set a strict rule for myself not to break. a health rule, an alcoholic rule; NO DRINKING allowed. no fraternizing. no stirring up old memories. no looking, no touching…

i don’t really miss the place that much. i have regained time for myself. one amazing sign of having control of my time back is that i’ve read almost 300 pages of a book. in just the last 10 days. for me, that is HUGE. but there are other things happening. a definite “undoing”, which i hope will lead to a recreating, somehow. i’ve made a definite attitude change about my photography. it is no longer public. and this is hard. really hard. just one month ago i had that big to-do over the photographs of the model “Grace” who did not want her photographs displayed publicly. Little did I know that she was planting a seed that I would come to water and allow to grow.

and it’s not just as simple as changing the settings in my flickr profile. it’s a mental reset. i have to stop thinking “openly” and start thinking and acting “privately”. and i don’t know where this will go, or how long i’ll be able to adhere to it. i did a photo shoot yesterday with a really beautiful model, maybe one of the best opportunities and experiences i’ve had working with a successful and established professional alternative style model. and i’m not going to publicly display her photos on flickr.

flickr recently became a bit of a downer for me anyway. in the last year or so. it’s a hard place to maintain a healthy net relationship. either you have to really prostitute yourself there by farming your images out to tons of groups so that a lot of people can see them, or you need to spend a lot of time looking at and commenting on other peoples photographs. You need to do both, really. and it’s a huge job because flickr is a black-hole of enormity where there are a LOT of really good photographers. it’s hard to understand how to relate to people there. you must be genuine, of course, but you must not become discouraged. and more and more each day you must understand that you may never make money from doing “this thing” that you love so much. and that the images you create, though they are unique and individual, get watered down in the oceans and oceans of photographs that are out there. everyday someone new and talented comes along doing something just a little bit better than you do… and they block out the light of the sun. you become forgotten.

so where my work will go, i don’t know. i think by hiding it, and then bringing it out for rare glimpses of light, people will say, “oh yeah! darko! something new! and they’ll want to suck it up. or maybe not. maybe i’ll just fade into obscurity. keep working because it’s the only thing that i get any peace of soul from but the act of seeking public acknowledgement is a waste of energy. and what i am hoping is that the same thing will happen that is happening through the exiting facebook. that i’ll find more time to commit to my work and that i’ll stop looking out THERE for happiness. condensing concentration.

if anyone wants to see my latest work, ask and maybe i’ll send you a link.