Closing

by shz

I think I’m closing up my Fotopages.

Why?

Because I have this other website which I think present my works better.

I don’t think it’ll be the same with Fotopages. Anywhere else, you won’t get the feedback that you were used to. That’s what had been keeping you alive.

Maybe that phase is over. Do I still need the feedback?

Well, you ask yourself that.

That’s the thing I love about Fakhrul. He always make me think. I guess he doesn’t want to get the blame when I regret my decision if he gives me a straight answer.

Well, I have been thinking about shutting it down. It’s a photo blog, so I always feel pressurize to update it. Like there’s an obligation to put new works, when currently I have none. The only work in my life at the moment is my marriage and architecture. I’d love to include photography, but I just can’t pursue it the same way I did. My life’s a routine, it’s not a drama anymore. I feel dry up, emotionally. I can’t take my time anymore. One time I’ll come home with photos and it’ll be left off for months until I can get back to it. By that time, there are new photos, and then I’m confused on which I should finish first.

I wish I could be disrespectful and put any crap on it and write something to help it look good, when it’s just an empty picture, that doesn’t tell anything, that doesn’t recall any memories, that doesn’t have any significance to it, that doesn’t speak and bleak.

What is the purpose of photography, if not to capture a memory? Places, people, fleeting moments – they all alter significance as time passes. And now all my photos that once had a meaning get boxed up and pushed to the back of the cupboard or under the bed.

Fotopages is another thing. I feel like people took advantage of its existence and popularity and made it a free billboard for advert of their businesses, and my comments section became the same. I hated it, a place where once respectful artists made their names and acquaintances of same interest has long gone, and what’s left seems to me like a mediocre spot for gossip columns and where people sell stuff.

Well good for them. But long enough time passed, I found another place where I can group my works, put a title to it – sort of like my personal best. Recollection of memories, events of my life, places I’d been to and people I made friends with. Every photo made me say, “This is when…” And I love it. Am proud of it.

I think my Fotopages won’t be long. I already know what to write on my final entry in it. We’ll just wait and see.