(Vera being the perfect Vera that she is does not make her any less not Vera for an image. Or does it?)

It would be reductive, and untrue, to write that making pretty photos is, for me, a negative addiction.

It certainly is a vice.

And because it's a vice that I often hide, a tool that I sometimes use to judge myself and a habit I can't shake,

I will call it (wrongly? who knows?) an addiction.

What's worse? That I feel the need for a disclaimer to share a photo that's this pretty?

Or that, after the disclaimer, I will still upload the photo?

It's true that I take this sort of image because I can -- it's a practice, a tool, a muscle.

And I think it can-do/has-done me justice when I go to use those practices, tools, muscles elsewhere.

But like any craft, it becomes an art not because you've learned it... but because you've unlearned it.

I judge myself for making photos that have the overwhelming sensation of pretty because they don't show their work first.

I keep making them because they fascinate me, and (if I'm being blunt) they make it easy to get people to shoot with me again.

We're getting to reasons why I prefer to shoot only one or two people predominantly.

Because if I see someone a few times a month, I can shoot 'pretty, shareable, social-networking-worthy' photos of them occasionally and spend the rest of my time making images they may never want to share anywhere... but that I will love.

If I shoot a model or a friend who wants portraits, well, the heat is on for me to Produce. An Image. A Polish.

And I'd be lying if I said I didn't, once in a while, enjoy doing it.

But then, what do I do with these diamonds in the bullet-proof window?

Besides share them here with a backhanded apology, of course.

*

And to make my point, this is straight from the negative that was shot in my un-fancy film camera.

Who lied when they said this alone would/could satisfy me, entirely?

Vera Claeys knocked me out.