It seems I need a new name for my photography identity in order to reimagine the possibilities and take on a new direction. I think this is a good thing, particularly since I am using Grzegorz Kieszkowski as my author name. I really like it. I used to shy away from it and if truth be told embarrassed by it, because as a kid it made me different and I wanted to fit in.
I have been Greg my entire life, Grzegorz or Grzesiu if you are close and polish. I have never liked the name Gregory until yesterday. I’m not sure why. Maybe it is because set against the backdrop of boudoir and pin up photography it now means something, but I really like it.
My new name is going to be Gregory K. Like Louis CK, and countless others who have simplified their names to become more marketable and memorable. Of course I am having a little difficulty because the domain name I want gregoryk.com is already taken. Thats’s what you get for coming late to the party, but I am grateful to be at the party in the first place.
What’s in a name? Everything and nothing.
Everything because a name connects us to a particular experience and everything we know about a person. Nothing because if you change the name, the core, the thing that really matters remains the same.
That’s the key to life I think. The ability to be a chameleon and change with the times but not to change our values and who we are as a person. We no longer live in a simpler time, but that simpler time was not as simple as the simpler time before it and the one before that. The future is coming. Change is already here and a name really matters, but what’s in a name shall remain exactly the same.
Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@drew_beamer
