The Psychological Trap Quietly Destroying Your Photography - Moments of Mood 3.4
4/22/202615 min
In this Moments of Mood episode of The MOOD Podcast, Matt returns after a road accident left him physically immobilised for several weeks, unable to photograph, travel, or work, and uses that enforced stillness to examine one of the quietest but most destructive reflexes in modern photography: the need for proof. What happens to your photography, and to you as a photographer, when the images you make never leave the hard drive? When the algorithm stops rewarding your work? When self-doubt creeps in because no one has seen the photograph yet?
Matt draws on a recent conversation with fellow photographer Pie Aerts, a decade-long meditation practice, and the uncomfortable weeks spent away from the camera, to ask whether photography is a destination we're trying to arrive at, or a pilgrimage we're already walking without realising it.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMatt Jacob· Host0:00
Some of the most important progress in your photography will never show up anywhere. No likes, no publication, no visible evidence at all, and yet most of us still feel uneasy when we have nothing to show. A few weeks ago, after an accident forced me into unexpected stillness, I realized just how dependent I'd become on proof. [gentle music] The other week, I found myself sliding along a piece of dirty tarmac on my side, wearing nothing but a T-shirt, some loose trousers, and sandals, hoping to stop as quickly as possible from about thirty miles an hour before I did myself or anyone else any life-changing damage. Thankfully, my hundred kilos of weight helped me stop sooner than expected. It didn't help the friction of skin on tarmac, though, but I'm lucky. I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Uh, a torn rotator cuff, some deep skin lacerations, and various bumps and bruises, but all of that is healing, of course, and it could have been far, far worse. What surprised me wasn't the injury itself, though. It was what surfaced underneath it. I ended up, uh, immobilized far more than I anticipated. I mean, okay, I'm a middle-aged man who's not as brave or as strong as certainly my wife and female friends proclaim, but granted, I felt a little sorry for myself, but I wasn't dramatically immobilized, just that sort of annoying level of immobilization