Lawrence Ripsher

Here's an entry I posted on my revamped Lost in Focus site earlier today. Thought i'd share it here too.

"2008 was great for photography for me in some respects. I had the Contender Asia final, the Contender Season 4 season and a number of commercial shoots. So while the year was a great success on that level, on the other hand, I did very little photography for myself – the kind of photography that got me started on this in the first place.

So I just spent the Xmas break looking through some of some of my Pbase favourites’ and the most popular galleries on that site. With the exception of those people who have continued to push their limits, boundaries and comfort zones, very little has changed. This is a good and a bad thing. It’s good because my favourites’ consisted of mostly excellent photograhers and that certainly has not changed. On the flip side, I’ve also noticed a trend amongst the general populus of photographers to move towards heavier and heavier processing, more obvious poses of pretty models and lots more “me too” images. The photography and processing has gotten more and more creative and simultaneously the images mean less and less. Mutton dressed as lamb we’d call this back in ol’ blighty. It used to impress me but digital photography, Photoshop and photographic workshops have all amazing tools in the hands of average photographers and now a glimpse through popular galleries looks more and more the same. Even more than it did a year ago. Popular photography, at least on pbase, is dominated by the same old usual suspects – followed closely by the crowd who wants to be just like them. Nothing wrong with that of course – but it bears no resemblance to what I consider to be photography. There are exceptions of course. Those who fall into that category already know who they are.

In contrast, this site has been an inspiration to me. Seeing everyone’s work continue to be posted on here while I was tied up in other things makes me believe that if you start something interesting enough, it quickly creates its own momentum and takes on a life of its own. That’s what has happened to Lost in Focus. It started slowly at first but in the past few weeks and months I sense a crossing of the Rubicon. Not every image has to be a work of art – but what we strive for will ultimately determine how interesting the journey is along the way, and ultimately the destination too. Keep that goal in mind and everything else starts to change naturally. Amazing photography when in that mindset almost becomes the side effect. To point out one individual whose work I think lives and breathes that, we need to look no further than Kal. Kal is someone someone whose work I always liked, but seeing how he seemingly effortlessly transformed his work to a completely new level with a film camera in his hand has truly been an honour. There are countless other images on this site that shout this also. When I think about the images I want to create, I think I owe it to myself and the peers whom I respect, to try to create genuinely original work. Again, not a masterpiece for every shot – but to never compromise on honesty and to be critical with myself and others. This means investing in subjects, trying new things, not getting pulled along with the crowd and continually reminding myself not to settle for less than I’m capable of. It’s such a pleasure to have this forum to share work on. Lost in Focus 2009 is really going to be something.

Here’s an image I took yesterday to punctuate how I felt as I start to get serious about my own work again"

A discussion has continued on the site on this topic. You can follow it here.

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