Progressing
Katherine McCoy said: “”Graphic design can never rise above its content.” Stefan Segmeister said: ” If I have nothing to say, then the best design won’t help me.” At the Time magazine, Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz asked me point blank what is the difference between sending someone like me to Nepal to document an uprising versus another photographer who can do the same work, assuming that our contacts, knowledge of the ground and photography skills are the same. “It is your point-of-view. We want your point-of-view!” he revealed after I struggled to give a clear answer. Kay Chin, a Singaporean photographer who was an early influence in my photography, always asked me: “What upsets you?”
I think all these messages are finally getting into me. I wonder if I have been too wishy-washy with my conscience. I have a weakness in committing to a point-of-view, always sitting on the fence when debates occur because I try too much to see things from both sides. Has that made my photography wishy-washy as well? I think the only way to put that to test if to find something I really feel about and work on it. And see if this work is profoundly different from what I have been producing so far.