An anecdotal thought based on comments made by Robert Wright, by way of Rob Haggart (whose blog you really SHOULD be reading, even if discussions of signal-to-noise ratio lead to moments of doubt).

I was basically told during the Photo 101 phase of my schooling that the professors had 'seen it all -- empty swings, pictures of pouty friends, and the roll of film taken in your dorm room an hour before class,' and that 'those things are OK, we aren't going to judge you on that content, and you need to get them out of your system so you can go on and do REAL work.'

To this end, Robert Wright writes,

...The confluence of technologies of digital photography, the www for sharing, a boom in consumer credit allowing amateurs to purchase gear that only professionals would have bothered with in the analogue days, all of this has brought an unprecedented number of photographers into the arena at exactly the same time and often at the same phase, that early discovery phase that used to go by fairly unnoticed in art schools around the country.

It's true that you're always trying to grow through your work, but at the same time I like to think I managed to have my most larval development out of the public eye. Those pictures are embarrassing.

Throwback Image Saturday

This portrait of Nick is from waaaaaaaay back in 2002 when I was still in school and had a grand old time stealing the keys to the photo kids' studios and busting out the strobes. That said, this was all tungsten lighting with an 80A corrective filter held over my old Yashica TLR (RIP). I was doing my own yearbook of portraits which I digitally printed (on a state-of-the-art epson somethingorother...) and bound for presentation.

Nick was a stand-up guy, a fair critic and genuinely enthusiastic. He was one of the first people I showed my thesis film to -- about 20 minutes after completion, in fact -- so whatever criticism he was to give would have done no good (when I say I had 'completed' it I mean that I got the edit done and didn't want to work on it anymore). He said he enjoyed it very much and saw the (obvious) undertones right away and gave a knowing wink. Nick vanished shortly after my graduation -- I suppose he dropped out. I did have some connections and friends still going for a few years after I left, but I haven't seen him since.