Cannisters, from The Fifty Project
Sovereign vision. I heard this term at a lecture last year and wrote it down on a note card. My scrawled notes continued with the definition, “Once you have thrown off the obvious influences, or more likely have internalized and evolved them into your own way of looking at things.” I think that is the goal of all photographers whether they know it or not. We all start out making photographic clones (go back to see my Pepper polaroid) and progress on to the “heavily influenced” stage before we actually come into our own version of reality. When we begin to see and respond to our own version of reality, our artwork becomes our own. We’ve removed the training wheels and go forward under our own power and control.
We venture off to see the things we want to see, learn how to respond to them and create artwork based on our singular view of the world. Sovereign vision does not come quickly or easily, but a process of growth. The growth is a result of photographic experience in addition to personal and artistic maturation.
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