"Wow, your camera takes good pictures!"
People say this to me a lot. They mean it as a compliment. A friendly observation. A harmless little quip. Yeah, and Hemingway had a great typewriter. Michelangelo had a hell of a chisel.
I used to correct people when they said this. I used to try to explain. That it wasn’t the camera that spent years sketching bodies in the margins of notebooks, learning the way light wraps around a collarbone or how different bodies respond to certain poses. That it wasn’t the camera that wandered through the National Gallery of Art as a kid, staring up at portraits of kings and queens and thinking, "How do I do this now? How do I make people feel like this?" That it wasn’t the camera that learned how to talk someone through their nerves, how to pull them back from self-doubt, how to make them see themselves the way I do.
Because people want to believe art is easy. That if they just had the right lens, the right gear, they could create something beautiful too. They don’t want to think about the failure, the rejection, the nights spent chasing an idea that never quite lands. The frustration of seeing something so clearly in your head and not being able to get there. So yeah, fine. It’s the camera. The magic little machine that does all the work while I just sit back and sip my coffee.
But I don’t correct people anymore. Because it doesn’t matter. If you think it’s the camera, fine. If you think I just push a button and the universe does the rest, great. Because either way, I get to do this. I get to create something with you. I get to take everything I’ve studied, drawing, painting, sculpture, human nature, and pour it into a single moment. A single moment that shows you at your best. Your strongest. Your most beautiful.
People will believe what they want to believe. And if it means I get to keep doing this, keep making people feel beautiful, then fine. Let the camera take all the credit.
-Marvin
