I have been thinking a lot lately about the similarities between music and photography. How a photograph like a song, takes its place among ones catalog, helping to shape a career as an artist and story teller. I often look back at some of my earlier work and find that it lacks the energy I once found in it when it was current. Either I feel that I have improved my skills since the image was taken or perhaps the work just doesn't speak to me the way it once did. I have often wondered how musicians feel about some of their earlier works. I have read interviews where John Lennon in hindsight has regarded some of his work as "throw-away." Having reflected on this subject for a while I have come to the conclusion that our emotions toward our own work tend to shift and thus never remain constant. But it is important to remember that all of these creations we have birthed are significant in their own right. John would have never written "Imagine" had he not first written songs like "Every Little Thing". These earlier works are just as relevant as our current gems, as they all light a beacon on the quest to express our emotions and experiences through our artistic creations. Our work will continue to evolve so long as we continue to create and our emotional connection to our body of work will eb and flow like the tide. Our earlier photographic works, like the early penning of a song writer, is part of the catalog that defines us as an artist. One who takes the risk to share our visions with the world. Indeed we will grow, we will transform and our work will reflect it, however the work that came before will appear behind us like footsteps in the sand or pages of the story we have already written. They are all traceable to where we started this journey and the story will only conclude once the last word is written. For within the covers of this story we have written many chapters all with varying importance but without them the book would never be complete.
"Hypnagogic" Otter Creek - Honor, Michigan