{"id":3001,"date":"2016-12-29T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T17:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/?p=3001"},"modified":"2018-11-28T16:20:38","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T23:20:38","slug":"12-29-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/2016\/12\/12-29-16\/","title":{"rendered":"12-29-16"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/DSC01055_A6k_2-Edit_15k.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3002\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/DSC01055_A6k_2-Edit_15k.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1500\" height=\"1000\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/DSC01055_A6k_2-Edit_15k.jpg 1500w, http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/DSC01055_A6k_2-Edit_15k-200x133.jpg 200w, http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/DSC01055_A6k_2-Edit_15k-1024x683.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Day 364 \/ 729 \u2013 \u00a0Why do I shoot what I shoot? \u00a0I honestly don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p>When I try to think about it, I don&#8217;t come up with a good answer. \u00a0There isn&#8217;t one overarching thing.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a little bit of a chicken and the egg problem. \u00a0Which came first, what you want to shoot, or why you shoot it? \u00a0For me, the shooting came before figuring out what I really wanted to shoot.<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s a little less common to pick something to shoot, and then go do exactly that. \u00a0The artist&#8217;s statement doesn&#8217;t write itself before the art happens. \u00a0Brandon Stanton of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.humansofnewyork.com\/\">Humans of New York<\/a> started out wanting to shoot people in New York, but even that morphed into something different when he started really talking to his subjects.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always been drawn to black and white photos. \u00a0My first camera of my own was some 35mm film camera in the early 90s that I barely knew how to use. \u00a0I knew how to focus, load the film, click the shutter, and that was about it. \u00a0I didn&#8217;t understand what the settings did, other than maybe make things brighter or darker. \u00a0I don&#8217;t even know what brand it was. \u00a0I simply had fun with it. \u00a0I&#8217;ve had digital cameras since the late 90s, none of them &#8220;serious&#8221; cameras. \u00a0Until this project, I never took any of it &#8220;seriously.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It took half of the first year of 365 until I started to find my &#8220;voice,&#8221; and even then, I&#8217;m still not 100% sure what that means. \u00a0As soon as I figure one thing out, another comes along to stake it&#8217;s claim. \u00a0I was enjoying shooting in the fields, then we went to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/tag\/yosemite-national-park\/\">Yosemite<\/a> and that turned into a &#8220;thing.&#8221; \u00a0It&#8217;s a great problem to have.<\/p>\n<p>But there are a few things that stick with me when I shoot, that tell me what is a James shot and what isn&#8217;t:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Feeling &#8211; If I don&#8217;t feel anything, then it won&#8217;t matter if I take the shot or not. Without feeling, there is no reason to do it. \u00a0This is top of the list, no matter what.<\/li>\n<li>Heart\u00a0&#8211; I prefer to take photos of things that were loved, or are loved. \u00a0A falling down barn was once someone&#8217;s job, or their day, or something that helped them. \u00a0At some point, they cared about it. \u00a0Nature is the same way. \u00a0We feel something akin to love in nature, when we are really in it. \u00a0I&#8217;ve taken and posted plenty of photos with no heart behind them. \u00a0They aren&#8217;t my favorites.<\/li>\n<li>Wonder &#8211; A cousin to heart. \u00a0Yosemite Falls are a great example of that. \u00a0You feel small in comparison.<\/li>\n<li>Fun &#8211; Yes, there is room for fun in art, and certainly in photography.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is by no means an exhaustive list. \u00a0It&#8217;s only one side of something even I don&#8217;t completely understand. \u00a0But the most important parts of my photography have little if nothing to do with the camera, the lenses, or the software (although a little bit to do with the software) than it does the purpose and feeling behind the photo. \u00a0I think that&#8217;s the big secret to art, and what can make it so difficult to do. \u00a0When you put the pressure on to make and produce, you push to the side the things things that make your art. \u00a0The feeling involved. \u00a0The reason you are making it. \u00a0You can produce daily, and make good work daily. \u00a0Do it often enough (such as 365 days in a year) and it will come easier. \u00a0The reasons you shoot show up when you show up.<\/p>\n<p>Finding that out, that&#8217;s the trick.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/maps\/iLVPr1T96mL2\">Map<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Day 364 \/ 729 \u2013 \u00a0Why do I shoot what I shoot? \u00a0I honestly don&#8217;t know. When I try to think about it, I don&#8217;t come up with a good answer. \u00a0There isn&#8217;t one overarching thing. It&#8217;s a little bit of a chicken and the egg problem. \u00a0Which came first, what you want to shoot, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[2,374,377,45],"class_list":["post-3001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-118","tag-2","tag-box-elder-county","tag-p","tag-ut","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jamesgralian.com\/365\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}