getting show photos or videos back from a performance always reminds me that i’m a visual artist first and a performing artist second.
i dove deeply into circus because it was such a boon to my mental health. my technical skills and artistic expression in that modality developed in parallel to my documentation of it, and when i train i often don’t realize that i am much more concerned with producing visual media for consumption rather than performance.
the absorption of an ephemeral act by an audience member vs. the absorption of the depiction of an ephemeral act by a disconnected viewer are two different things, and while i can say i was satisfied with my performance last night due to its many constraints, my improvisation under pressure, and how i gave into the vulnerability of engaging with the audience, it’s quite the opposite when reviewing the video and stills of the performance.
another way of saying this: the gap between my performance and my opinion of the photos was the largest i can ever recall.
more than technical flaws in my own performance, all these choices (angle of capture, choice of what to capture, framing, etc) fail to adequately describe the performance (i guess, as i would have) even while being what one viewer perceived. how is this so?