My Eyes are Bigger Than My Portfolio

Today was a very bad day. Today was a day that will set me back months of confidence building, self-esteem, determination, and motivation. Today was the day that we had portfolio review and yet again I was not named in the top of the class for performance.

Let me recap for you my journey to date:
101 - Top of the class, 4.0, no end of session contest
102 - Top of the class, 4.0, third place in the end of session contest judged by peers
103 - Second in class, 4.0, no end of session contest
200 - Top of the class, 3.7, no end of session contest
201 - Top of the class, 4.0, not in the top four in the end of session contest judged by peers
202 - Top of the class, 4.0, no end of session contest
253 - Top of the class, 4.0, no end of session contest
203 - Second in class, most likely 3.7, possibly 4.0 (but unlikely), not in the top three for portfolios judged by industry professionals, not in the top four promos judged by industry professionals.

As far as I can tell, I am an academic alone. There is no creative future for me, but perhaps one of an academic nature. I am subpar with my shooting, even when I invest my entire heart and soul, not to mention my entire financial aid check, into striving to achieve perfection, which is apparently not good enough. I am not the best. I am not even in the small cluster of people surrounding the best. I am, for the first time in my life, unable to achieve top status at something that I am actually trying to thrive at with all of my attention and vigor.

It is the most devastating feeling I have ever had. I feels like betrayal. I feel as though I have been lying to myself, that my inner artist is cheating on me and laughing behind my back while making me a cuckold fool. I am actually going through a grief cycle and doing everything in my power to keep from dropping out of Brooks tomorrow. I am not exaggerating here. I honestly feel like quitting here and now, on the spot. Why continue if your work, your actual representation of potential and of a future in your chosen path, is so terrible? Going into this critique I had a 4.0 with extra credit tagged on, a 99.5% on the first year cumulative exam, and confidence that I was most definitely going to be in the top three portfolios, and even enough gumption to think I might take the whole cake.

Now I would sooner rip up every single one of my prints than ever show them to another living soul. I AM NOT LOOKING FOR SYMPATHY OR A PICK ME UP OR COMMENTS OF ANY KIND! I am merely cathartically explaining what it is like to fail in an artistic endeavor. It is one of the most heart wrenching experiences of my life and I am not sure I can recover. This was the one that mattered! Other reviews were popularity contests or ill-informed determinations. This one was the one that really meant something. This was real professionals telling us what they thought. And what they thought was that they loathed my work. One of them actually said "this is terrible, I don't want to be negative, but that is the truth."

I was told that I have no control over lighting, no concept of how to use a wide angle lens, no creativity or diversity, that I can't retouch, have bad models, and no sense of place. I have never before questioned my abilities behind the lens, only the financing and diversification of locations and professional models. Now I question everything. Now I question my very purpose in life. My choices, my ridiculous fantasies.

And so, rather than stewing in my depressive and thoroughly contaminating mood, I scheduled a shoot for tomorrow and went to bocce night.

Bocce cures everything.