Honest Pots, Part 3

(This is the third part of an essay that began with my July 4 post.)

Before beginning therapy, Brent had made several attempts to avoid temptation by not watching Apple presentations and not reading anything about new photography gear. But he could never hold out longer than a week. His curiosity about new products became so strong, he ended up tracking down all the videos and articles he had missed. ”I tell myself that all I want to do is see what the new features are. But I think the truth is that when I click a link in an e-mail—to a video or an article—I’ve already decided to buy the product. I just don’t acknowledge that to myself.”

“So the feeling that you need things might come before you know specifically what features those things have?

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it does. Crazy!”

“It’s not crazy if whatever your need is has little to do with the specific features of the products. Try to remember the thoughts you’ve had when you’ve felt you needed things.”

“It’s like if I don’t have the most advanced stuff, I won’t be able to keep up. I don’t mean I won’t be able to keep up in a keep-up-with-the-Joneses way. I’m not trying to prove to people that I can afford top brand, top model stuff. In fact, I don’t want people to know I have that stuff. That’s one reason I don’t use my best lenses; I don’t want people to know I have them. The kind of not being able to keep up I’m talking about is not being able to do things as well as I have to do them. Like, let’s say I’m in an Italian class and other students in the class either spent time living in Italy or had Italian parents who spoke Italian at home. I’d be at a disadvantage. I wouldn’t be able to keep up. That’s how I feel about gear. If just one or two people used pro gear, I wouldn’t worry. But thousands of people use it. When I go to the park I see them. I’ve got to give myself the same advantage those people have. In fact, I’d like to have better gear than they have so my photos will be better than the average person’s. I want my photos to be professional quality.”

“But you don’t use the lenses that would give you the advantage you want because you don’t want people to see that you have them.”

“Yeah. It’s partly that I don’t want anyone to know I spent as much money as I spent because for a not-that-serious weekend photographer to spend eight thousand dollars on a lens is ridiculous. I’m not worthy of pro gear and I know it. I don’t want people to get the impression that I think I’m better than I am. But, at the same time, I want them to think I’m better than I am. I want them to think my pictures are good because I’m a good photographer, not because I’ve got an eight thousand dollar lens. Another thing is, if they saw I was using an eight thousand dollar lens, they’d expect my photos to be much better than they are. They’d expect me to do the kind of work that’s in ‘National Geographic.’”

Brent paused. “Oh, man, you know what this reminds me of? When I was in my twenties, I used to invite people for dinner and when I invited them I intended to cook all the food myself. I chose recipes, bought the ingredients. But at the last minute, I always chickened out. I ran around the city to neighborhoods far from where my friends and I lived and I bought takeout at a bunch of restaurants I was pretty sure no one I’d invited had been to. Really good restaurants. I spent a fortune. As soon as I got home, I put the food in my own containers and dumped the takeout containers down the trash chute. And before my friends arrived, I’d have all the food heating on the stove, sending smells through the apartment. People would say what a fantastic cook I was—I should open a restaurant, write a cookbook. I tried to change the subject fast. When they asked me how I got a certain flavor, I panicked. I was cheating like that even in high school. In Spanish class. I’d do my own translations but then, before I handed them in, I’d check them against professional translations and fix my mistakes. You see what I mean when I say I’m a fraud? Pretending to be someone I’m not started way back.”

“Remember a few weeks ago, when you described how a potter went about making a dishonest bowl? You called the bowl dishonest, not the potter. Did you think the potter was dishonest too?

“No. I think he was sincerely trying to make a good bowl.”

“From the way you described his process I had the sense that he had definite ideas about what attributes a handmade bowl should have.”

“He did.”

“I wasn’t clear, though, about where he got his ideas, how he came up with his list of requirements. And I wondered what he thought of the requirements. Did he agree with them? Did he think they helped him? Or constricted him? “

“I think that kind of potter just takes commonly accepted ideas and doesn’t question them much.”

“He met all the commonly accepted expectations and he produced a dishonest bowl.”

“Yeah. It looked unnatural.”

“The reason I thought of your description of the potter now is that when you were talking about taking pictures in the park, serving dinner to friends and correcting your Spanish translations, I had the feeling that you were trying to meet a set of expectations.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Well, take the example of the Spanish translations. You didn’t turn in your work as it was. You didn’t collaborate with classmates on the translations or compare your translations to theirs and fix what you thought should be fixed. You turned to translations done by professional translators. You mixed your work with theirs.”

“Yeah.”

“Who was it who needed to see such outstanding work from a young student?”

“The teacher, I guess. I didn’t show my translations to anyone but her. I didn’t tell anyone my grades.”

“Did you get good grades?”

“I always got A’s.”

“Were you proud of them?”

“No. How could I be? I couldn’t have gotten them on my own. I cheated.”

“You say that your teacher was the audience you had in mind, that it was her requirements you were trying to meet. But your teacher was accustomed to reading translations done by students. Her expectations must have been based on students’ work.”

“Maybe. She used to write comments on my papers, saying what rare talent I had. She hoped I would go on and study Spanish at an advanced level.”

“Did you ever have to take tests in class, where you couldn’t cheat?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you do on those?”

“I got A’s.”

“The teacher was satisfied with the work you did on your own.”

“I guess. But her standards for translations we did on tests, when we didn’t have as much time as we had doing homework, probably weren’t as high.”

“Maybe not. But whatever her standards were, you met them without cheating. Let’s go on to the dinners you served your friends. When you invited people, you thought you’d do your own cooking but, just as you did with your Spanish translations, you ended up turning to the work of professionals.”

“Yeah. But it was worse than with Spanish. With the Spanish translations, I at least started with my own work. I used the professionals’ work to improve mine. With the dinners, I didn’t make anything myself except coffee.”

“Who was it who wouldn’t have been satisfied with an amateur’s cooking?”

“My friends.”

“Were your friends wonderful cooks or had any of them said things that suggested they had very discriminating palates?”

“No! My friends ate diner food, pizza, prepared things from Whole Foods, stuff like that. When I went to their houses, that’s what they served.”

“But you didn’t think your cooking would be good enough for them.”

“When you say it like that, it doesn’t make sense. I should have just given them my own cooking from the beginning or bought pizza. Once I led them to believe I was a great cook, I raised their expectations. Then, every time they came over, I had to run around in a frenzy buying phenomenal food. I couldn’t keep it up so I stopped inviting people.”

“You made a trap for yourself. You took a group of non-cooks, people who bought their meals at diners, pizza places and Whole Foods and probably expected similar non-cooking from you. You ascribed to those people expectations that only a professional chef could meet. You trained them to adopt the expectations you ascribed to them. And then you felt you couldn’t disappoint them, you had to keep serving them phenomenal food. I would guess you trapped yourself the same way when you studied Spanish. Your teacher probably expected student work from you but you ascribed higher expectations to her, expectations you could only meet with the help of professional translators. We know the translations you submitted exceeded your teacher’s expectations because she didn’t just give you A’s, she told you that you had rare talent. After submitting translations you prepared with the help of professionals a few times, it would have been very hard to start submitting your own work.”

“I didn’t even consider it.”

“You have an eight thousand dollar lens?”

“Yeah. A Canon 400 millimeter, f/2.8. I’ve never taken it out of the box.”

“When you bought it, how did you think you’d use it?”

“In the park, for birds.”

“Without it, how are you shooting birds?”

“I can’t. The only other lens I have that could do birds is a 100-400 millimeter zoom but it’s still in its box too.”

“Because you don’t want people to see you using it?”

“Yeah.”

“You said that when you go to the park you see other people using professional lenses.”

“Yeah. Lots of people.”

“Do you think all those people are professional photographers who take ‘National Geographic’ quality photos?”

“God no. I’ve seen people point their pro lenses right into the sun and handhold heavy lenses that obviously needed a tripod.”

“So the people who would be your audience if you brought your 400 millimeter lens to the park either have equally excellent lenses themselves or are accustomed to seeing other people use excellent lenses. And some of the people who use professional lenses probably take photos that aren’t great. But you say that if these people saw you with your lens they might conclude that you had an exaggerated idea of your skills as a photographer, that you spent a ridiculous amount of money or that you’re taking ‘National Geographic’ quality photos.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m having trouble matching the people in the park with the thoughts you think they might have about you. I’m also having trouble understanding what would make you so conspicuous that strangers would turn away from their own activities and focus their attention on you. Have you seen that happen in the park? Have you seen a photographer attract a lot of attention?”

“Once. A guy had a 600 millimeter lens on a tripod and he was trying to take pictures of baby red-tailed hawks in their nest. I think people were more trying to see the baby hawks than looking at the photographer, though.”

“But if you were to take your smaller lens to the park, people would become very interested in you rather than in the subject you were shooting and they’d judge you according to a set of criteria: a person should have a realistic idea of how skillful he is; the money a person spends on gear should be determined by how serious he is about the activity he’s using the gear for; a person who uses professional gear should take professional-quality photos. People who didn’t know you would judge you on the basis of your gear.”

“That’s how I feel.”

“Would the people in the park ever see your photos?”

“No.”

“But you worry about their having expectations that your photos wouldn’t be able to meet.”

“Yeah.”

“And you want them to think your photos are professional quality and attribute their quality to your skills as a photographer rather than to the fact that you use professional lenses.”

“Yeah.”

“But they’ll never see your photos.”

“Right.”

Both Brent and I started to laugh.

“Who does see your photos?”

“Me. Sometimes I e-mail them to a couple friends but usually the only person who sees them is me.”

“You say your Spanish teacher was the audience you had in mind for your translations, your friends were the audience you had in mind for your dinners and strangers are the audience you have in mind when you choose what camera and lens to use in the park. But you disregarded your teacher’s and friends’ true, probably modest expectations and there are indications that the strangers in the park may not be interested enough in you to have expectations. And if they do have expectations, you have no way of knowing what those expectations are and they have no way of knowing whether you meet them. So the expectations you’ve decided you have to meet would seem to belong to someone other than the people you’ve ascribed them to.”

“It sounds like they have to belong to me since I’m the only other person involved in all these situations. But it doesn’t feel like I’m setting expectations for myself. It feels like I’m in danger of not being able to meet other people’s expectations.”

“Maybe we’ll learn that you got your expectations from other people. We’ll ask the questions your hypothetical potter doesn’t ask: Exactly what are your expectations? Where do they come from? In what ways do they help you or hurt you? And do some of them need to be challenged, revised, relaxed or discarded?”

“So I can make myself an honest bowl.”

“I like your definition of honesty. You said Kazu Oba’s bowl was honest because it was the colors and shape it was meant to be.”