During Arno Rafael Minkkinen’s presentation on Evenings with the Masters
I noticed a comment from one of our participants: it said “We have lost the magic of touch in our society.” That comment was very helpful (thank you J) for I had been sitting on the contents of my next blog post for a while and this spurred me to take this up again.
Since the pandemic began, I have been consumed by a fire that was ignited inside of me. That fire burns with the strong desire to face our challenges head on as a photographic community—and overcome them. Some people may confuse passion for naïveté and quixotism, but my positivity is not driven by false hope. My life’s journey has not ever been an easy one, and I have taken the more difficult path when available to me, if I thought it would be more rewarding.
American Falls, Niagara ©2015 George Nobechi
The person who taught me that was my father, who hailed form the small town of Owen Sound, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Huron. He always made himself available to others and gave countless hours of his time to causes like African development and combatting inequality, and creating bridges between Asia and the West. Losing him when I was still a teenager made me realize that life was not going to be a cakewalk, but years later I would learn the priceless lesson from observing his life that living to make the world around you better was a worthy goal.
The Global Financial Crisis, Fukushima, Hurricane Sandy and a major life and career transition ensued. Every few years there was a new challenge in front of me. Covid-19 might be the greatest of them all, but as I alluded to in my March blog post, it might also be the greatest opportunity—for us to reset our lives and focus anew on our priorities and what really matters.
I’ve been calling it The Great Reset of 2020.
One of the things that comes to mind when I think about The Great Reset is that our goals were in the wrong places. Mine were, too. When it came to photography I was letting the world dictate my “worth” to me. I would submit to various online photo competitions and face rejection on many of them; I would look at the work that was selected and often wonder what I was “missing” that they had. Truthfully, some of the winning work was powerful and worthy, and some of it, I realized, was not “better” than mine. Jurors are human and art is subjective. They tell you that all the time, but it takes experience and quite a lot of rejection, as well as a sprinkling of success, for you to really understand that.
If you’re a professional baseball player and you hit safely every four at-bats, you can probably carve out a living. If you get a hit every three at-bats you’re an all-star that year. Do that for your entire career and you are a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. So, submit to three and get in one- that sounds about right. But if you are a perfectionist (and chances are that if you are an artist you are one), it will always sting to not be chosen.
Growing your social media followers is another rabbit hole, perhaps even worse. It’s not an indicator of your worth as an artist or a human being. Back when I was working in the business world, companies would use your bonus as a way to indicate your “worth.” It was used as a tool to make you feel good or terrible, and at times strategically leaked to pit you against colleagues and create internal competition. Now I found myself worrying about things like social media counts and online awards to value myself as a photographer.
Clearing the Slate, Japan ©2016 George Nobechi
As I type this out and read what I wrote it seems so silly in hindsight, but by the same token, if you are an “emerging” artist in the present day, there are fewer avenues to showcase your work and contests and social media are important resume-building tools. But their competitive nature and “instant gratification” - based systems meant that by basing my worth as a photographer on those results, I had simply given up one rat race for another. Have you found yourself caught in this digital rat race, too?
“Doing One Lap of Japan, Starting with Zero Yen, Going for Our Dreams. Please Contribute.” / “Free Hugs”
Shibuya, Tokyo ©2018 George Nobechi
I’ve always been someone with dreams and a vision. That vision has never placed me in the centre, so why had I let my own sense of worth be an important pursuit that took up so much of my time? I’ve come to realize that what I should be doing is emulating my father and dedicating myself to the community, specifically, in my case to the photo community. We shouldn’t be competing with each other, rather we should be encouraging one another. My original goal with my photography was to make a few lives just a little bit better and thus the world also just a tiny bit better. If each of us acted in a way to be a net positive to our communities we’d leave the world just a little kinder, gentler and more beautiful than we found it. From small acorns, as they say.
Going back to the comment from Evenings with the Masters, my response was that “We have finally realized the magic of it[touch], and will forevermore never take it for granted.” I still think this rings true, and that it does not come from a sense of folly. I truly believe that we have a chance here to connect with each other more than we did before. Online interaction can never replace a hug or a good old get-together, but to fill all the moments in between, it’s connecting us in ways we never knew were possible. This is a gentler, more benevolent use of technology—one that isn’t about gaining followers and fans in a one-way, self-centered pursuit, but rather about community, connection and staying in touch with each other, giving one another encouragement and making the world around us just a little bit better.
And when we can finally enjoy each other’s company in person again, it will be just that much sweeter than before.
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Cherry Trees, as seen from a train ©2016 George Nobechi
What’s next after Evenings with the Masters?
I realize that our present circumstances could stay with us for a while. Other than pushing forward with my personal work I am going to continue to make myself available to stay connected.
One of those ways is by offering personalized, one-on-one sessions over Zoom. We can cover any aspect that you like in your photographic life: it could be feedback on your photographs or preparation for a portfolio review, it could be career development, it could even be photography lessons, whatever you wish. Many of you have approached me for advice on building your networks or careers and I’d love to help if I can.
Another way is by offering a program called Sunday Night is Photo Night. This is going to be a fun program as we talk about photography, what makes for a good photograph and how to strive to make a great photograph. There will be homework assignments, but it will be a family “campfire” type setting and no pressure to make work. The idea is to grab a glass of wine and talk photography while we look at examples, from the history of photography, but also from select work of our own. There will be an Americas class and an Asia class.
Later this summer we will be getting to work on the significant task of editing the Masters series recordings to prepare them to share with our community. That is both a daunting and exciting task.
And in the meantime, we have new workshop initiatives in the works with some of your favorite masters, so stay tuned for those. The best way to be kept up on all the latest is by subscribing to our free monthly newsletter.
And if you enjoyed this post and want to read my prior blog entries, I would suggest you begin with the March entry below when I first began to express my thoughts about this pandemic.
Until next time, please be well and safe.