#40 August
curiosity as compass in an image saturated world.
What engine drives the solitary work of photography and photographers?
We can talk about the usual suspects. gear. attention. the mental health, or lack of it. We can muse about the impact of social media on how we think about our own work, as well, but what made you make it in the first place? and maybe more relevant is what makes you keep making it when the world is over-run with great images?
For 4 years now (approaching my 20th as a photographer) I’ve been trying to untangle all this—often badly in emotional fits of writing here. It’s bordering on annoying at this point how many circles I’ve been, well, circling.
Where did my seemingly unending love affair with photographing the world go amiss? and while it’s been dwindling for some time why can’t I just say okay people change lets find a new passion and let it go.
Re-reading some older newsletters I’ve covered the challenges of relying on your location as your subject for going on a decade1. I’ve covered the changing political situation and the complexities of being a more left leaning person in a sea of very hard right (and hard working) folks and having trouble romanticizing a prairie life that’s riddled with facebook meme’s and twitter conspiracies2.
I’ve covered the struggle of moving to medium format3. The massive expectations of what I could make against the limited lens selection, the physical impacts of very heavy gear. How I had this lifelong dream of medium format based on very real experiences with medium format film and found digital to be considerably less than I’d hoped.
I’ve talked about my addiction to editing4. My inability to let go of the past. My mother’s death and the scars it left5. I’ve talked about technique. Black and white vs. color. Focusing on form6. or focusing on your subject. How a boring life can lead to boring photos, and how that’s actually a lie.
I’ve talked about cross pollinating your mind with other mediums like painting and drawing7. About philosophical approaches to how you approach and see the world8.
I feel like I’ve covered nearly every angle trying to fix myself. Trying to restore a passion I consider a fundamental aspect of who I am.
The apparent answer to much of this complex stew came in the form of a very cheap (by medium format standards) new lens and accidentally finding my lens in the medium format space. The very first photo I took with the new lens some part of me when ahhhh… finally.
But why.
It cost less than 20% of the last MF lens I bought. It weighs 3lbs. and has quite a few design.. characteristics, lets say.
It’s technically the worst lens I own.
And It’s not the quirks that tweaked my brain. I have a long history of lens modifications from vaseline to coupling two lenses not designed to work together with tape to shooting through crinkled up water bottles and every translucent material a model ever threw at me. I know quirky.
It’s not the manual focus, but that did reset some brain wiring.
It’s not the near 50mm field of view, or the f/1.7. both of which I’ve experienced in depth and decided 50mm is one of my least favorite ways to see the world.
This took some thinking about.
Following that first picture a fever to photograph the entire known world washed over me. I made more pictures in 3 days—whilst hobbling around with a compost shovelling hip injury—than I made all august.
It’s not the color rendition.
not micro contrast.
it’s certainly not the sharpness. Hitting F/1.7 is nearly impossible. Though you might argue the lack of sharpness is a feature. Digital sharpness is unnatural to my eye and it makes my heart grow cold to see it spread through the world.
It’s not that my mental health improved—though summer and gardens are great for my brain—or I had a zen retreat and refocused my chi into caring about photographs. It’s not that I was sure anyone else might see the images the same way I do and give that nice dopamine hit from social sharing.
It’s not that I finally made the images I wanted (though they are getting closer to what I want—past ruzz be damned). And possibly most importantly, they weren’t medium format film images which I crave so deeply.
We continue to wait for a real digital medium format sensor that isn’t marketing and obeys the laws of physics.
What it really came down to the in the end was… Curiosity.
Putting my eye to camera I can’t anticipate what I’m about to see. I can’t be bored by the same fuji standard lens “look”. I can’t be lulled by the same 4 focal lengths I’ve largely shot for 6 years. Jesus, 6 years of medium format lens restrictions.
When I raise the camera I’m trying to satisfy my own curiosity about what the world might look like and for a long time things have felt predictable.
This isn’t the same “oh I’ve been down that gravel road before” type of predictable. It runs deeper. It’s I’ve seen every picture I’m trying to make before. And worse, often many times.
That sort of predictable.
The curiosity engine has been fully restarted. my camera is welded to my hand (all 5lbs of it) and I’m back making pictures multiple times a day for the first time since mom passed.
lots of shitty pictures. lots out of focus pictures. But also little magical nuggets hinting the photographer I’d like to be, rather than mimicking whats already been.
success can be a trap. You’ll always be aware of what worked even if you’ve outgrown it.
And so we roll into the cool nights with red-gold dappled ditches. browning and yellowed-edged leaves expanding to entire forests. My tomatoes have stopped flowering, leaves wilting back. I made bread because it was cool enough to run the oven.
September is here.
Rich cool dusk air arrived with the early sunsets. The fields are emptying fast. reliable farmers trailed by walls of harvest dust. The yellow jackets are somehow more asshole than usual. more angry. I bring my hoodie when I set out most nights.
we dreamt of harvest feasts in spring. we buried our dead and our seed and now those seeds are lush, rich, beautiful food. It’s worth remembering when dreams come true. When winter garden plans became spring work, became summer chores became fall suppers.
Photographically, I have no idea what is out there anymore. It’s all new again, for now. It’s all potential to be surprised, elated, and weirdly satisfied.
What makes me make work is not knowing. It’s stumbling on beauty and harmony, order, and disorder and seeing the deeper patterns emerging all around me. It’s a rampant curiosity about this short life and gigantic world I inhabit.
When that engine is slowed, or stalled, or disengaged I’m lost and untethered. In photography and the wider world.
Curiosity is the very fuel that keeps me alive and moving forward and while my normal life is full of it (who knew how magical and deep gardening, painting, breadmaking could be) and my work life is always pushing me to learn and evolve—without that fuel in my photography it became rote. Habit. forced routine.
There’s been such little joy for so long and it’s hard to hold a camera you’d have murdered someone in the street to own for most your life and whine about how boring it all is. it’s hard but not impossible because I’ve been doing it.
I’m grateful I didn’t give up. I was very close this summer. I’m also very happy I took a chance on a “crappy chinese lens” as some people have called it. All of this is to say, if you’ve been struggling with your own work, and circling, and not making progress it might help to remember the person that needs to be excited is you. Other people being excited is great but you have to live with the time and energy and cost of doing this work. The toll on the body. The toll on your relationships.
I can’t say more gear would make you any happier. it probably won’t.
I can say if you find the right gear. gear which delights you. that engages your eye and mind you’ll be on the right path sooner or later. We can’t make all the work we want, or love, that’s why there are other photographers out there making their work. But we can keep evolving our work to be closer to who we are when we make it (rather than who we want to be, or who we were) and with some luck that will add up to something meaningful for you in the end.
A few more photos then a recommendation for a photographer whose work keeps me interested right now, reminding me of the richness and depth of things with nearly every post.
For those of you who are curious. The new lens is the Mitakon Speedmaster 65 F/1.7. I strongly recommend it if you like a less perfect, less digital feeling image and have a mount they make it in.
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Lastly if you haven’t yet stumbled onto the work of Augusta Sagnelli you should give her a look.
Can’t decide what link to share for this.
Beautiful images and insights, both technical and philosophical. Thanks for the shout out as well. x
Beautifully baked bread! The loaves seem to float in your photos. I have gotten a couple of "cheap Chinese lenses" and love them for what they are. I hate discussions of "gear perfection." Great Personality in the photos can be achieved many ways. Perfect gear is not required.