The Myth of Self-Sufficiency – Eyeshot

The Myth of Self-Sufficiency

There is an concept that retains returning in images, even when nobody names it brazenly: self-sufficiency. The perception that in case you are trustworthy with your self, in case you work exhausting sufficient, in case you keep constant, then you are able to do the whole lot by yourself. Look, select, determine, with nobody round, so long as the phantasm of understanding holds.

It is a reassuring thought. It makes you be happy and impartial. But fairly often it’s also a chic type of isolation. Because at a sure level you might be now not contained in the work. You are too near it. And if you find yourself too shut, you cease seeing what you might be repeating, what you might be avoiding, and above all why you retain defending photographs that now not maintain.

Many photographers converse of management as if it had been an absolute advantage. Control of favor, of course of, of narrative. But complete management has a facet impact: it removes confrontation. And with out confrontation, the work stops shifting. It retains producing photographs, sure, but it surely now not grows. It perfects itself right into a closed loop.

In editorial work this turns into very clear. Solid, coherent, even recognizable initiatives arrive. And but the individuals who submit them appear caught in the identical place for years. There is dedication, and nonetheless nobody is allowed to say: right here you’re going in circles. Here you might be defending a type that now not serves you.

Being self-sufficient doesn’t imply being mature. Sometimes it merely means not eager to lose management. Not wanting to position the work in a scenario the place it might be genuinely challenged. But with out that problem, with out actual friction, the work stays protected. And what stays protected for too lengthy stops saying something new.

Perhaps actual development begins once you cease asking whether or not you can also make it by yourself and begin asking what you might be avoiding exactly since you are doing the whole lot alone. Not to delegate, to not search reassurance, however to know whether or not your work would nonetheless stand with out your fixed safety.

Self-sufficiency is comfy.
Confrontation shouldn’t be.
And perhaps that’s the reason we hold suspending it.

Marco Savarese
Editor-in-Chief