Peter Leavitt ©2011
School ended in May of 2009, and I’ve been suffering an artistic existential crisis ever since. Suffering may be too strong a word, but that’s beside the point.
Peter Leavitt ©2011
Art school is all about helping you improve your skills by killing the love for art that made you apply. Once that has been sufficiently beaten out of you by numerous projects that you can only now see the point of, hopefully you find your voice and recover the joy that brought you there in the first place. At least that was my experience.
Peter Leavitt ©2011
So now what do I do without weekly critiques, deadlines, and countless hours to spend in the darkroom or out in the streets/fields/whatever?
Peter Leavitt ©2011
For the past two-and-a-half years I’ve been back to “just taking pictures.” I try to keep a camera on me all the time, and sometimes I even have something specific in mind. I develop the pictures in spurts when I have the money, and I scan and edit them when I have the energy. My wonderful Linhof 4x5 spends a lot of time in its bag while I make use of an old friend, the 35mm SLR or rangefinder. The big old guy (around as old as my father) taught me a lot, and he’ll stay in my arsenal, but his pictures are views, and I’m after something a little more personal.
Peter Leavitt ©2011
Looking at the last few months of pictures incredibly briefly summarized here, I see again what drew me to photography is the first place: The ability to snatch a moment away from time and share it with people forever, a chance to appreciate the small miracles of wherever we find ourselves that we take for granted every day.
love that shot of the hill. so nostalgia. great work friend.
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