Unsure and Just Speaking My Mind

Tonight I had my first Pro Practice class and found it totally alarming and discouraging. A few of us were talking after class and i found that others as well as myself were feeling completely unprepared to step out into the art world. Not that i am necessarily blaming any teaching process or anyone else for my feelings of artistic insecurity, but as we were talking I found that many of us feel almost backed into a corner when it comes to producing work for many of our classes. One thing that I as well as others feel is that everything is supposed to have some profound, deep meaning behind it. Not that I can not and do not like producing work like this, but the pressure that if I don't have a serious and profound meaning behind everything that I do will cause it to be worthless is stifling me more than I realized. I am not usually one for complaining, I always do what I have to do and do my best to produce quality work, but I am just not feeling good about all of this work. I know that I am responsible for myself and researching the art that I claim to love, but for some reason I am feeling very uninspired by it all. But, I still know that I love art and I love photography; I know this because there are often still those instances that when i create something I really love the feeling I get is indescribable and makes me feel unquestionably validated as not only an artist, but as a person. I suppose that I feel that this Pro Practice class, this preparation for the real world, is just a little late. I will do my best to take everything I can from the class, but it depresses me that when half if not more of the classmates (friends) that surrounded me in this class this evening 'did not raise their hand when Stretch asked how many of us wanted to be professional photographers.' Is this because we are all so unstable, since this is the major of our choice and I believe that most of us truly love art and photography, and just like waisting time and money, or is it that for some reason we are all feeling stifled and uncertain about our art work and career choice. I suppose that I, among many others, feel very unguided and while I have a great overall education of being an artist, I just feel like I have no direction. Many of our classes seem to me to be very repetitious, not that our instructors have not been probably great artists and very educated, causing me to be at some sort of stand still and losing the spark that I once had when it came to my art and education.
All of this just really has me thinking about "why I do art, why I love it, and really what avenue I want to take photography....and what other avenues are there?..."

David Lachapelle

When faced with the task of explaining and or exploring a contemporary artist which inspires and influences my work I find find myself always drawn to those who frequent the current pop culture scene - those who explore fashion or story telling (like cinema and advertising). One particular artist that particularly comes to mind is David Lachapelle. I find his work to be completely inspiring, being that it is a mixture of fine art, high fashion, commercialism, and story telling. His work can stand alone as a piece and work for advertising purposes.
I have chosen Lachapelle as the fist artist to represent myself for the semester because I would love to push my art into a similar direction. I particularly enjoy using props, making people look beautiful (even if it is an odd beautiful) and I always find myself making images that tell some kind of story.

Also, on a side note one of my favorite elements about his pieces are their vibrant colors.