I shared the process of this still life in my instagram stories a while ago and I wasn't going to post the photo at all, because I am not happy with it. It's a big ol' 'fail' in my books, for a handful of reasons. (I may even delete it from my feed eventually.) But I'm trying to see that F-word in a not-so-negative light these days and in that spirit, I also thought it might be valuable to share the fact that I often make photographs that never see the light of day. Hours have been spent on still life works and self portrait projects that just didn't turn out.

You often hear that it's important to get comfortable with being bad at things; this is something I've always struggled with. If we don't allow ourselves to suck at things, we will never really learn anything, get better at anything, master anything, right? Easy to understand, rationally, but a difficult pill to swallow in reality. As I push myself to make more personal work this year, I am constantly bouncing between being frustrated and disappointed in myself and delighted with the process and (once in a while) the results.

This one was a disappointment - a real bummer haha. But tomorrow I'll take the lessons I learned by failing at this one and I'll make another one. It may or may not turn out, but I will no longer let that stop me from trying. And you shouldn't either ☺️ (In case you needed to hear that!)