Does It Have to Have a Message?

Blurb.com sent out an announcement this week regarding their annual contest for the best photo books. I never even opened the email. My phone "droided". Saw what it was and deleted the email. I tried that once, remember? Submitted my "Drive-By Shooting" book and implored all my Facebook friends to vote for me, so that even if my book wasn't judged the best, maybe I could win by popular vote. Did you just hear that? Did you? That was me sighing...

Needless to say, I didn't win anything. And with that loss I started to question the whole drive-by-shooting art vs. luck question again. It's an endless battle that is played out in my head. There is never a clear winner, so the battle rages on--sometimes with a truce called, sometimes back in full-out warfare. My head has been at peace lately, but with this blurb.com email that I didn't even READ, full-scale war has broken out.

I was out running errands admiring the curve of the phone wires, the unbelievable grace of the towers. Maybe I should enter another book. Maybe I should enter my second book, "Fly-By Shooting". That's when I missed my exit...

Why? Tell me, why would I want to enter another contest? I'm all about winning. I don't play games unless I'm 99.999% sure I'm going to win. There is nothing sure about entering a contest.

I looked at the thousands of books entered last year. They were beautiful. They recorded earth-shaking events, locales that I can only ever dream about seeing. These photographers were artists and they were taking photographs of things that matter.

Why do I shoot? It's for no one's education. It has no value to anyone. I shoot because I love it. I shoot because seeing things through a lens makes me less afraid. I shoot because everything I see--I see it as a photo. Alleys, overpasses, bridges, street signs, buildings, cars parked along PCH, the front of an abandoned building. It's all art to me and with luck, sometimes that final image is exactly what I saw in my head as I held my camera out the window driving down Wilshire Boulevard or pressed against the scratched window on a Southwest Airlines flight.

But I have no message. What I record is my life. The mundane, the exciting. The hours in traffic. The hours in planes. I don't know if I'll ever win a contest. Does anyone really care about the beautiful curve of the overpass on the side of a freeway? The majestic beauty of one small part of a gigantic bridge? The sleek lines of a towering building. Probably not. I have no message. No insight into anything. I just love to shoot, to look at the world at an angle.

Will I enter a "Fly-By Shooting" book? I'm not sure. We'll have to see who wins the war in my head...