I feel like “artist” is one of those terms that people should hesitate to self-apply, because the meaning and impact of art is subjective on the part of the audience. The practice of creation, it seems to me, should be goal enough for itself. You have something in you and it wants to get out. What happens after that, when people encounter whatever it is that you put out into the world, is where art is born. When people are moved, or inspired, or angered, or utterly untouched. So, if someone experiences art in your creation, they can call you whatever they want.

So, the way I see it, calling yourself an artist feels to me a bit like calling yourself sexy. You can do it, but what really matters is what other people say.

I am well aware that many (most?) other people are going disagree with me on that. As well they should. I’m certainly not one to tell others how to define themselves or what they do. This is more about how I have never, ever, considered myself engaged in “art” or being “an artist.” Writing, translation, photography, this is all stuff I do because it’s just what I do. Because I want to, or need to. Not because I’m trying to to be “an artist.” I don’t really think much about if what I am making is “art.”

Until, maybe, now.

I have written before about being in the Hikari Shayukai photography club. Two years in, I’ve grown increasingly unsure about it. It has motivated me to just keep taking pictures, which has helped improve my basic technique immensely. And the regular exposure to other people’s vision and dedication has been valuable, too. But I worry about the aesthetic gap between the teacher and me. I am frequently frustrated because I fail to see why he chooses many of the “winning” photographs he did. They often strike me as bland, or common, or sometimes utterly incomprehensible. Regardless of the actual merits of a given photo—something I’m not nearly as qualified to judge—I just felt unable to understand the teacher’s expectations and standards, hence my ongoing failure to meet them.

For the last meeting, I didn’t have a lot of my regular selection of landscapes, birds, or city windows to submit, so I decided to say to hell with it and include some selections from a recent photo shoot I did for creative purposes, taken without any consideration for the club meeting at all. My wife and I went out to an abandoned railway tunnel and she posed for me to take some, well, ghost pictures. I set the shutter for a long exposure and she would move in front of the tunnel to create blurred, spectral images. After a bit of post processing in black and white, they really worked. Some of them were downright chilling. Which is exactly what I wanted.

I had a vision, took action, and achieved that vision. That felt good.

I submitted three of the series, and when the teacher saw them, he immediately and emphatically got it. He took them as a set and understood what I had been trying to achieve without any hesitation. Not only did the set get chosen as the top submission for the month, he recommended I enter them into the Yamaguchi Prefectural arts competition next spring. In the two years I’ve been attending these club meetings, that’s the first time he’s made such a specific, and emphatic, recommendation.

Which sounds, to me, like someone who knows the topic deciding that something I created is art. That felt really good.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. “Show us the goods! Where’s this art at?!” And I’d love to show you the pictures, but I was specifically told not to publish them anywhere yet because that could disqualify them from competitions. Which, I mean, if this guy who actually judges photography competitions thinks I have a chance, who am I to argue?

What I can do is show one of the series rejects, which gives a sense of the mood but wasn’t quite what I was aiming for.

Even now, I can see what’s wrong with it… The hands are too clear, the posture carries the wrong emotion, and the hat distracts. But it’s close. And like I said, the sense is there. Maybe this one isn’t art, but hey, who am I to say?