My name is Jonah. I create cyanotype photographs and write about the quest for a meaningful life through art and mythology. On this journey, I hope to inspire you.
Cyanotype Print
the latest from the studio
To complement my cyanotype photography, I blog to help and inspire. The latest blog excerpt:
The Cure for the Jonah Complex
And from a pinnacle of that dome perilously he dared
To essay, like Icarus, the unstable air,
Leaping, with waxen wings, into the welkin;
Down to the bottom he fell, and battered out his brains:
A warning to the wise to beware of hubris.
Ever heard of the Jonah Complex? Me neither, and my name is Jonah! I stumbled upon this term while researching a term paper, and I thought, “Hmm, what is that?”
The Jonah complex is the “evasion of one’s destiny” or the “running away from one’s own best talents.” In other words, the Jonah Complex is the fear of success.
In this article, I define the Jonah Complex and suggest ways to identify and cure it. Maybe you suffer from this complex and don’t know about it!
Follow Your Bliss
In the fine art photography world, all successful artists invariably practice a “specialization” similar to their commercial brethren. Obvious examples include Ansel Adams’ B&W photography of the American West, Joyce Tenneson’s flowers, Irving Penn’s still lifes, and Richard Avedon’s portraits. Some argue that if you’ve seen one photograph by Adams, Tenneson, et al, you’ve seen them all. Their vision and subject are unwavering and unmistakable.
To put it all in a convenient nutshell, they repeat themselves over and over and over again. And yet, the photography rarely seems repetitive. To the contrary, the very repetition itself creates and strengthens the vision and voice. The obsessive devotion to subject pursued with a singular vision also produces the “greatest hits” photographs that we all know so well by these photographers. Without the body of work produced by relentless repetition, these “masterpieces” would not exist.