Welcome
New year, brand-spankin’-new blog!
To kick things off, here’s a bit about me and what I hope to do with this blog.
I got my first camera, a Kodak Disc, for my 10th birthday, in 1983, and for the next 20 years, I always had a camera around. Maybe more important, I was always aware of photography and photographers, sort of like when you have your heart set on a new car, it seems like every time you turn around, you see someone driving one. It’s as if your senses are heightened when you want something that much, and I wanted to be a photographer more than I’ve ever wanted any car.
As I got older, though, and started thinking about a “career” in a more concrete way, I didn’t have any context for what it would mean to be a working photographer, or how to get there. I didn’t know any photographers, and the ones whose work I’d admired as a kid seemed out of reach. Plus, I wasn’t a fan of uncertainty—the thought of not knowing where I was going or how to get there drove me crazy. So I ended up majoring in English and taking a more traditional path, one that led me far away from photography. Sure, I kept my camera, and I took the occasional darkroom class at the local art center. But that was the extent of my involvement with photography, and I thought that’s the way it would always be.
After undergrad, I spent six or seven years working in a job I didn’t love—cubicle, gray walls, fluorescent lights, The Office minus the comedy. In my late 20s, I moved to L.A. (shout-out to Angelenos!) and picked up a master’s degree in writing. School was like a Linus blanket for me, all blue and warm and fuzzy, and I thought for sure this degree would change everything. And it did—just not in the way I thought it would.
I didn’t write the Great American Novel or become the Voice of My Generation. But for my master’s thesis, I wrote a collection of essays on photography—and the more I wrote about photography and thought about how much it had mattered to me ever since I got that Kodak Disc camera and wore the collars of my Izods turned up, the more I wanted to be out taking pictures. I started to remember what I’d wanted to do and be when I was 10, before I started telling myself those things were out of reach. I finished my thesis and walked away with $40,000 in student loans—and the decision to be a photographer.
Everything had come full circle.
Today I’m taking some amazing photo classes—not to get a degree, just to learn—and I’m letting my curiosity lead the way. Right now, I’m most interested in documentary work, but I’m open to other possibilities. I’m still growing as a photographer—finding my voice, my style—and I don’t want to limit myself.
In this blog, I’ll post images I’ve taken that same day (like the one below). I’ll also write about the photographers I’ve always admired (and ones I’ve just discovered), photo books that have made me think, lectures and exhibits I’ve attended, projects I’m working on (or hope to work on someday), successes I’ve had, mistakes I’ve made, things I can’t figure out, and anything else that’s on my mind—because if it’s on my mind, odds are, it has to do with photography.
To kick things off, here’s a bit about me and what I hope to do with this blog.
I got my first camera, a Kodak Disc, for my 10th birthday, in 1983, and for the next 20 years, I always had a camera around. Maybe more important, I was always aware of photography and photographers, sort of like when you have your heart set on a new car, it seems like every time you turn around, you see someone driving one. It’s as if your senses are heightened when you want something that much, and I wanted to be a photographer more than I’ve ever wanted any car.As I got older, though, and started thinking about a “career” in a more concrete way, I didn’t have any context for what it would mean to be a working photographer, or how to get there. I didn’t know any photographers, and the ones whose work I’d admired as a kid seemed out of reach. Plus, I wasn’t a fan of uncertainty—the thought of not knowing where I was going or how to get there drove me crazy. So I ended up majoring in English and taking a more traditional path, one that led me far away from photography. Sure, I kept my camera, and I took the occasional darkroom class at the local art center. But that was the extent of my involvement with photography, and I thought that’s the way it would always be.
After undergrad, I spent six or seven years working in a job I didn’t love—cubicle, gray walls, fluorescent lights, The Office minus the comedy. In my late 20s, I moved to L.A. (shout-out to Angelenos!) and picked up a master’s degree in writing. School was like a Linus blanket for me, all blue and warm and fuzzy, and I thought for sure this degree would change everything. And it did—just not in the way I thought it would.
I didn’t write the Great American Novel or become the Voice of My Generation. But for my master’s thesis, I wrote a collection of essays on photography—and the more I wrote about photography and thought about how much it had mattered to me ever since I got that Kodak Disc camera and wore the collars of my Izods turned up, the more I wanted to be out taking pictures. I started to remember what I’d wanted to do and be when I was 10, before I started telling myself those things were out of reach. I finished my thesis and walked away with $40,000 in student loans—and the decision to be a photographer.
Everything had come full circle.
Today I’m taking some amazing photo classes—not to get a degree, just to learn—and I’m letting my curiosity lead the way. Right now, I’m most interested in documentary work, but I’m open to other possibilities. I’m still growing as a photographer—finding my voice, my style—and I don’t want to limit myself.
In this blog, I’ll post images I’ve taken that same day (like the one below). I’ll also write about the photographers I’ve always admired (and ones I’ve just discovered), photo books that have made me think, lectures and exhibits I’ve attended, projects I’m working on (or hope to work on someday), successes I’ve had, mistakes I’ve made, things I can’t figure out, and anything else that’s on my mind—because if it’s on my mind, odds are, it has to do with photography.
Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball
Labels: cameras, debt, education, Kodak Disc
posted by Liz at 6:55 PM
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