We recently connected with Sarah Elise Walker and have shared our conversation below.
Sarah Elise, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I have learned most of what I know about photography from making bad art over and over again. Always remaining a bit unsatisfied with my work has proved to be necessary. It leaves me wanting more from myself. I never wish to be at a place in my career where I believe there is nothing I can improve upon. If I was perfect every time, what would the point of any of this be?
Aiming to be a lifelong learner has taught me patience and eagerness towards seeking ways to become more experienced. An important skill that I am still working on is my ability to say yes to projects that scare me or make me doubt my talents. I’m constantly looking for ways to stretch my range of photographic capabilities.
It is not uncommon for artists to feel paralyzed by overwhelming feelings of dissatisfaction with everything they wish to create and fear they never will. I am no exception. I rarely lack ideas, and am more often stuck in the follow through process of creation. When I began to comprehend that learning how to motivate myself was just as important as any technical skill I could learn in art school, something clicked. Doing my best to stop blaming a lack of resources for my creative blocks, and to just start, has jumpstarted a radical shift in my progress as an artist.
Sarah Elise, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
The journey to my career as a photographer truly happened in a pretty unremarkable way, which has always been amusing to me. While I did grow up surrounded by a love of cameras, photography, and personally consuming social media content, I wasn’t committed to being a photographer from a young age. Originally, I intended to be a journalism major in college and combine those skills with my interest in film photography, studying photojournalism. It is rare to find photojournalism specific programs, and when I was accepted to the Savannah College of Art and Design, I took a leap of faith and planned to major in Photography and minor in Writing. As my love for art grew and priorities shifted, I switched my minor to Museum Studies. Since then, I have put very few limitations on myself in terms of what I won’t try as a photographer.
My love for storytelling is still alive and well in all my creative endeavors, however I have learned not to put myself into a box. The concept of having a style or niche has always been intimidating to me, and for the time being I have chosen not to constrain myself to a particular aesthetic or medium. The uncertainty I feel about my career goals has shaped my appreciation for creative exploration. When it comes to photography, I absolutely love it all. Analog, digital, alternative processes, printmaking, are all fair game for me. There are stories all around us and there is very little that I don’t feel drawn to capture. That being said, I do feel most in my element when shooting portraits and spending hours in the darkroom. There is something very special to me about manually editing my photos during the printmaking process. Learning analog techniques has given me much more appreciation for historical photographers and their processes. Forcing myself to slow down and deeply analyze my photos has opened a whole new world of creative control. This has carried into my digital work, as well as the way I see other artists’ work.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
For a very long time I thought of art as creating exclusively for the goal of an end product. This is likely the result of living in a consumption-based and capitalist- driven society and it is something I am internally fighting everyday. Unlearning this philosophy has proven difficult.
More recently, I have been motivated by the idea of creating just to create, no matter the medium, how it will look, or what people will think. For me this might look like shooting five rolls of film and stopping myself from being exclusively occupied by how those photos will look on my Instagram feed, as a print in a gallery, or in my portfolio. I try to think of practice as exercising my creative muscles, training them to endure frequent use and the “injury” of burnout. Trying to convince myself that every photo I’m going to take will change lives or be the turning point of my early career is not only unrealistic but sets myself up for disappointment. Instead, I focus on the process of photography, how it makes me feel, and what I enjoy/dislike about what I end up with. Being absolutely in love with what I do is what keeps me going through failure. I have built for myself an attitude of (perhaps delusional) self confidence that all of this hard work will one day become something bigger. Reminding myself that choosing a creative career and being a photographer is already worth it because it is what makes me happy is something I have to do frequently to keep myself grounded.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
The mission driving my creative journey is understanding the relationship between myself and my environment to the best of my ability. Creative work has always displayed itself to me as an act of my subconscious leaking into something tangible or visible. I enjoy creating as a practice of getting feelings out of my system and then later analyzing what these choices might indicate that I cannot say out loud.
I would also say that I am strongly driven by collaboration. Working with and for other creatives has been one of the most rewarding practices. To me, there is nothing more satisfying than listening to someone express their vision and being able to make that come to life. I am able to exercise this practice the most in fashion and storytelling shoots with other SCAD students.
Specifically, my work with Creative Director and Stylist, Clayton Creech, has proved to be one of the most beneficial decisions of building my portfolio thus far. Navigating collaboration with models, stylists, makeup artists, photo assistants, and creative directors has been the catalyst of many learning lessons. Chapter 1: Curiosity has increased my confidence in working alongside others tremendously.
To me, the most meaningful or “successful” art is rarely the result of just one person’s efforts. Outside influence and collaboration should never be underestimated. Inspiration is chasing all of us wherever we go, and paying attention to what tugs on us is the key to creating fulfilling art. This love for the process of art-making is what will keep us all afloat in a society that may not always understand work that doesn’t exist solely for profit.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sarahelisewalker.com
- Instagram: @sarahelise.photo
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-walker-7171a424a/
Image Credits
Personal Photo by Isabella Guerra