I'm now into my 39th trip around the sun. A bit balder, a bit greyer at the temples and in the beard (I'm starting to look as though I've eaten a badger and left the tail hanging out). A bit wiser? Maybe. One thing that I've definitely noticed over the last couple of years is that I'm less willing to tolerate having my time wasted (though I’m still perfectly happy to waste it myself).
At the start of the year I was embarking on a new endeavour: an MA in Photography with Falmouth University. I thought that it would help me find direction that I felt I’d lost, and maybe give me some of the drive to finish things that I’ve often struggled with.
Truth was, though, that the course wasn’t a good fit, and just last week I withdrew as a student. For one thing, it didn’t fit my learning style. I last studied for a postgraduate qualification back in 2002-3, and that was a very intensive course — one week of 9-5 studying, a week off for self-directed work, then another week of studying. This was a much more relaxed course and, being distance learning, I felt really disconnected from it.
I’m not the person that I was twenty years ago, and having studied photography on my own time and dime so much over the last ten years I figured that this whole distance learning approach would work for me. Turns out that I still need that intensity, taking in a lot in a short space of time, in order to be able to learn and want to learn more.
So, I’m the shortest-term MA dropout in the history of ever, possibly. I’m happy enough with that.
So what's next? April's already here, kids, there's no time to wait around.
In short, personal work, personal work, personal work. I've got notebooks full of the stuff that needs to get realised. Some of it is vastly different from what I've attempted before, some of it is projects that need to be finished lest they languish forever on a hard-drive somewhere.
All of that in between the regular work: headshots, fashion portraits, and music promo.
It's 2019, I'm Graham, and I still have no idea where the hell I'm going. Welcome to the ride.