For the last several months, I have been staring at the blank screen on my laptop, hoping that the universe would magically inspire me and make my brain sprout fully-formed sentences oozing with wit and wisdom.
As you probably have realized from my lack of blog posts, the blank page has been winning so far.
When I started writing, it was not difficult for me to pen down my thoughts about photography. In the span of 30 minutes, I would be able to put together a series of images for Instagram and write down a caption that I felt was reflecting some of my profound thoughts about photography. It felt... easy.
But somewhere along the way, I started putting unnecessary pressure on myself. I felt that every blog post had to have the most unique idea. An idea that then had to be developed into a 1500-word essay filled with breezy prose. I needed everything to be perfect before I could share it with the world. And that inevitably froze me.
For the last several weeks, I couldn't understand why things had become so different, why something that was so much fun became such a burden. It was only when I started writing this post that I started to understand the reasons behind my writer's block.
In the quest of developing the most perfect blog post, I lost sight of the real reason why I started writing in the first place: I wanted to share my personal point of view and have fun doing it. I realized that instead of tapping into my authentic self and deriving ideas from my life experience (for instance, how hip-hop and street photography are 2 sides of the same coin in my life), I started chasing after universal truths, and lost myself in the process. But truth be told, I cannot write like Susan Sontag or John Berger, nor should I aspire to. I can only write like me with all my flaws.
I have been rethinking what I want to do with my blog and I think that I finally have a direction. I want you to read these posts as if we were talking over beers after a photo walk. I want to explore the random thoughts that sometimes take hold of my brain while I whistle in the shower. I want to write freely as if I am in a state of flow and I don't want to worry about the format. Sometimes, you'll read long-winded rants, sometimes just a few words to introduce a body of work. I will use this blog as a sounding board, a way for me to crystalize new ideas that fleet in the ether.
You will probably not find any universal wisdom in these posts. What you will find, though, is my own point of view based on the things that I have experienced in these 42 years on this earth. My hope is that by reading it, you may start looking inwards and find some of your own truths and ideas.
See you in a couple of weeks.
Thank you for reading!
Suresh
PS: At the end of the day, a blog post on a photography website feels a bit empty without pictures, so here are my 5 favorite shots taken in January 2023.
As always, coming back to the core reason why we do what we do: not to please other people or for their likes, but because of our love and passion for it.