‘Where’s my recognition at?’

Hello again, thanks for tuning into this week’s burning question, which has been:

‘Where’s my recognition at?’

How, What, Why, what’s up?  You may ask, well there’s nothing specific, I’ve arrived at this through a mixture of recollections, reflections, an insight in the ‘normal’ working world and some general thoughts. I’ve been trying to pin down exactly what recognition looks like, I had/have a 30+ year career in photography, is that recognition?  

I know of course recognition looks different for each person, some can see it quite readily and others can never really see it. In many fields I think it has a certain uniformity but that consistency changes to something unrecognisable when you reach the arts, and yes, I’m including photography in the arts. It becomes something quite nebulous, very difficult to pin down.

I also realise by the act of asking ‘where’s my recognition at?’ that the question may make me sound incredibly conceited/full of self-importance but if you have peek behind the question, I think what I’m trying to get at is, by using myself as an example, what does recognition look like? Specifically what does recognition in photography look like then?

Well I think I can only answer that by my using my own experience, so as one looks back over one’s career* (*that usage is verb, not noun) I do recall some specific areas of recognition, think of the few kind words said, (although I can think of many more that were the opposite of kind but that’s another story), but let us stick with the positives, using what I’ve recently experienced in the ‘normal’ working world, I believe it can be split into four ‘categories’:

·      Words

·      Awards/Certificates

·      Financial

·      Engagement

I’ll take them in order and start with the most obvious, which are words, usually of the kind sort, a verbal exchange that may go something like “yes, good work” or “I appreciate that was tough but yep you got something that’ll work.” Just citing these examples off the top of my head, as I can only remember a few instances where this happened (I can actually count them on one hand) in my career but I’ll take them.

Next will be awards/certificates. Now oh dear now here comes the cynic in me, I will be honest now and say that for a multitude of reasons I’ve never entered many awards at all. Those that I did I can’t seem to remember what happened with any of them, which makes them unmemorable, maybe that’s telling the value of them1. As I do see so little value in them, I see the pay to play ones, I see the big sponsorship ones, I see obscure ones, I see ones with very specific gatekeepers, and it tires me, yet lots of people place so much worth in them that they see nothing other than that, it doesn’t make a palatable mix for me, I don’t seem to sit alongside them very comfortably. Maybe I should enter more this year and see where I get?

I will only briefly mention the financial side of recognition as in paying extra for a job well done, I can only remember one occasion where I received that, so probably best not mentioning it but thank you to the one that did, it is still appreciated all these years later.

Finally then its engagement, I thinking for this what about likes on Instagram? Surely that’s the prime form of recognition these days? Well I’ve been away from the Insta for a while and my recent attempts at return do not seem to please the algorithm tech bro gods, so I’ve not done so great, I’ve seemingly lost sight of what it is, it seems so much of my work doesn’t have a fit anymore, I know I’m not alone in that feeling.

Now looking forward where do I get my recognition from now?

Difficult to pin down that, work has changed so much that I’m not sure where it will come from. I do actually hope to get a little more Zen in this, so much so that it doesn’t matter but I’m only just starting out on that pathway, much more work needed there.

As an accompanying thought to this idea of recognition (and I will proviso this and say that it can be seen as a little pathetic, but I will put it out there as I said I’d be honest in these blogs, so please roll with it with kind eyes/see what you think.)

I’m noticing as I age towards that magic number of 50 that recognition looks different anyway. There’s a horrible thin line between self-recognition and self-aggrandizing…which is not a nice place to be, I know I’m not so important these days and that’s ok, truly it is, but I do still have something to offer.  

Speaking of offerings we need a picture for this recognition blog, now that is a difficult choice, shall I go with a self-recognition one or one that someone else has placed recognition on?

No I believe I’ll go with this one: 

A hole in a shower curtain that looks like an evil eye possibly the one in the Lord of the Rings.

Confused? Well, this is the one that had the most likes on my Instagram, this was made back in January 2017, which is 6 years ago and 320 people clicked that liked button. Is it any better now?

Surely makes you think, as ever thanks for reading and if you have any thoughts, feedback, comments or such like then please get me through the usual channels.

1.  Did think about putting “None-Award-winning photographer” on my bios but thought that it may be a bit knoby, maybe I’ll contemplate that again.