Burnt Coffee & the Creative Process
A post-gallery reflection: new directions and an urge to create.
Hello and welcome to my first post. My name is Adam Kocka-Patchik. I am a photographer based in Portland, OR; who focuses in portraiture and conceptual photography. As friends and family would know, I could imprint a long introduction about myself and drag you, unwillingly, through my resumé but I will spare our time and your attention span.
I sit here at Coffee Time in the NW neighborhood of Portland. This quaint hole-in-the-wall serves great coffee, baked goods, and even offers beer for the evening café dweller. If you’d like to know more I will happily leverage my friendship with Evan Stranksy from Evan Eats for a comprehensive review of this joint.
Anyway, on this December morning I brewed maybe the worst cup of coffee I have ever made myself. Burnt, dark, and unpleasant; I dumped plenty of sugar into my mug to offset the shitty-ness. Even in its sweetest form the bean water still left an aftertaste of burnt coffee.
So needless to say, I deserved a better cup of coffee which lead me to Coffee Time.
Kelsie, my partner, and I trudged through the damp December weather that permeates the Pacific Northwest this time of year to get to the café. We’re about a week and a half post-gallery showing of Altered Dimensions; my composition of photographic multimedia work that spanned that last 3 years. The turn-out was great and I appreciated the feedback and interest my friends and colleagues had in regards to the work at large.
Which leads me to the ambiguous part that is what to do after showing the work you’ve stared at for nearly a year? It is the big ‘WHAT NOW?’ moment. The work itself will be moved over to ProPhoto’s gallery after the new year for a new set of eyes.
But me, what do I do?
There is a feeling that, while I have delivered the exhibit palpably, it deserves to continue to be displayed as a greater chunk defining my work as a whole. I suppose mentally it has put me somewhere between dusting my hands off and carrying it around on my back, while further developing my body of work in new ways. My creative process for years now has been one of chasing fun, impulsive, and at times manic creative endeavors. Often in post and upon reflection have I found a specific meaning in the images or cohesiveness to the work.
The work that largely composes Altered Dimensions was not intentionally captured knowing this gallery show would be the final iteration of the work. This composition spanned three years but only one year before the opening night did I get the idea of playing with mediums and juxtaposing digital and analog consumptions of art. In short, I actually was making the work before I knew what it would become. This method of one’s work is reflective of the approach that documentarians and photo-journalists take.
Ben Brody, a phenomenal documentary photographer, recently mentioned on a podcast episode of A Small Voice that new or inexperienced documentary photographers often go into the field without a direction and capture what they see, only finding meaning just before delivering the images to publications. He himself did this in his early career so no shame on the photographers that approach their work in this way; myself included. You simply cannot plan what will happen in front of your face in the decisive moment.
One thing I’ve been painfully aware of in my work is that majority of my photography is reactionary and that is something I wish to correct by injecting some perspective. Since acquiring a creative studio a year ago, I have been trying to teach myself ways of crafting images prior to the moment of the photo. Slowing down and learning to light a scene, a person, or a product has been an invaluable way to construct the photo to produce more intentional final images. In short, taking them apart to see what makes them tick.
The facets of photography in which I want to continue focusing on are lighting set ups, stories being communicated through images, and the layering of elements within photos to progress my style beyond its current periphery. I do think this is a good starting point in crafting the visual story I want to tell. Pursuing images with these intentions will hopefully lend some insight to what I am seeking to communicate or the story I will attach my photographs to.
As fellow Portland based creative, Bryce Wong would say Have Fun. That’s the point; to have fun and get back to the simple joy of pushing creative limits. At the end of the day, I hope to build on what I have already made and bring these lessons into my future work in both photography, writing, and brewing a better cup of coffee.
Thank you for reading my first post <3
Welcome to Substack! Loved this introduction to who you are. I appreciate the shoutout!