Finding My Way Back

May 5, 2018 / Photography / progress review

I got lost again with my artwork around the summer of last year.

And I’m having a hard time to get into it again.

So the first thing I did was clean my studio, which consists of areas in my house:

The Den

The den is where I do most of my indoor shooting. I shoot against that blank wall on the right.

This den is clean right now, but a few days ago that bookshelf was piled high with books and photographic equipment that I just didn’t bother putting away after a shoot from last year. Now it’s clean again.

I have my Apple MacPro computer on the left, and that is where I do my collaging and Photoshop work.

I have a vision board on the wall where I put up cyanotype prints that I’m working on to see if they’re working. It’s also an inspiration board. I just like looking at these prints to see if they have staying power.

Then I have my bookshelf full of art books I’ve collected over the years. This is just half of it. I have two other bookshelves in the second bedroom.

The Closet

[koken_photo label=”closet.jpg” id=”158” media_type=”image”]

My second bedroom closet houses printers for printing my digital negatives, a humongous UV lightbox for exposing my cyanotype prints, and my storage shelves for storing cyanotype prints, camera equipment, and unused paper.

I specialize in an historical printing process called cyanotype which gives my images their blue color. It is hand applied, by brushing cyanotype chemistry onto paper, laying a photographic negative on top of it, and exposing it to UV light. After 12 minutes, I was the paper, and out comes the blue image on the paper. It’s magic. I love this process.

That’s why I have all this equipment.

The Second Bathroom

And finally the second bathroom and bathtub where I wash and rinse my cyanotype prints and then hang them to dry. The unused bathroom was a disaster last year. There were cyanotype prints everywhere. I finally have it cleaned again.

Is this a procrastination move? Maybe. Procratiscleaning. But I have to start somewhere. Again.

I know that to re-start from an artistic setback, I have to do something and not just think about it. So I cleaned my studio first. Next weekend I’ll start shooting again.

How about you? What are you doing to re-start your own projects?