On Everyday Photography
Taking a certain type of photograph is not easy or automatic.
I would like to shoot because I have something to say and not because I feel obligated, this was one of the problems I had when I was photographing every day and I felt obligated to Instagram. It was an excellent exercise in style, but a burden on my mind, and in the long run, it led me to want to use images only as a means to show a product and not to tell a story.
As in many things in life, it is above all a question of balance, but also of awareness. I find nothing wrong with practicing photography every day as long as I do it consciously and I have the goal of improving my skills and not like listless.
What I seem to have to recover, because lost along the way, is my desire to tell the little moments, the ones I remember at the end of the day and which, perhaps trivially, make me appreciate even a rather dark day.
A comment that has always warmed my heart and made me proud of the photographs I took was the one aimed at the calm that my images were able to convey even through a screen. It is from these comments that the term calmfluencer with which I still define myself today was born, or rather: it is the term with which I continue to identify myself even when I feel less like other labels (knitter designer, artisan, slow fashion maker, photographer, etc.).
If I stop to reflect, however, I begin to notice how this type of comment has been missing for months or maybe more. It will certainly be a set of factors, many independent of me, but the fact remains that this lack makes me reflect on what I am passing on to others. Although I still feel completely like a calmfluencer, I can’t help but admit that perhaps this description of myself is failing and I don’t like it.
If it’s okay for me to share less content about the world of knitting, it’s not okay for me to no longer be able to share the moments of calm that make me feel good first of all, but also for others.
Maybe it will just be a matter of re-exercising a bit, but I would really like to go back to that spontaneous calm.
