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The evolution of one’s photography has a trajectory and it leans toward homogeny, even though it often begins with the romance of finding and capturing something unique.
Here, I want to explore that initial spark that drove you toward the camera. I want to put you back in touch with the odd and the terrifying. The crazy and the unknown. It’s important to embrace your weirdness in photography, being not ashamed of the quirks and the idiosyncrasies of your strange ways and warped thoughts. Within the cracks and scars are a personality all your own — and the world is in desperate need of something different.
The Quick Background On Why You’re Not Weird Enough
It’s mostly explained right here, in a study done in the 1950’s, called the Asch Conformity Experiment:
The short version of it is that we succumb to peer pressure. This video shows that we will do whatever everyone else is doing, even if it compromises our own belief system. But before you get too judgmental on the idea of conformity, just know that this behavior also is designed to keep us alive and safe. Humans are complex.
You’re not weird enough because it feels unsafe to be so. You may read stories of famous people who are weird, with some attempt at correlating the success with the weirdness. I’ve met plenty of weird people on Skid Row, so there goes that theory. I do not think weirdness causes success, but I do think that success can give permission to be weird. As can any situation where one is capable of sidestepping social norms.
So, in all likeliness, you’re not weird because you are in the 99% of people who are attempting a normal life, with friends, co-workers, family, neighbors, teachers and more. You most likely just do not have enough safe places to express your eccentricities. Or so you…
