My battle against perfection
Car self portrait.
Back then, when I bought gear, I always wanted "the best".
The best notebook. The best video camera. The best instrument.
Technical quality seemed like the foundation I was going to build my practice on. ("A good craftsman has good tools.")
With the idea that if I didn't take the best, I'd regret it at some point.
"If I make a masterpiece on a poor technical medium, it might not have the career it deserves!"
And technique wasn't only a matter of equipment: it was also a matter of mastery.
No drawing before learning the basics of perspective, anatomy, color theory...
In other words: I was creating for an imaginary audience that would judge the result. On purely technical grounds.
That audience exists, of course.
It's the audience of teachers, judges, critics.
All those who suffered too long through technical training to let anyone else off easy.
But creating for those people, you end up dodging a far more important question:
"Do I like it?"
This line, this story, this image... do I like it?
Am I able to forget technical correctness and simply notice whether... I feel something? A pull? A joy?
When you start centering your work around that question, everything changes.
Technique is no longer the base. It's a consequence.
Gear and know-how are no longer painful prerequisites. They're extensions of the gesture.
I learn because I love it. I practice because the doing brings me joy.
Knowing full well that if I share this work, some will criticize it – for sure.
But others will enjoy it.
And those others, they're my audience.