December brought me low.
The short days punctuated by blinding patterns of hard december light and glowing auras from 11 ocular migraines in one month set against a brutal arctic cold snap left me sort of spinning.
(now 14 in 37 days and did you know if you get a migraine while sleeping you also go blind in your dream? true story).
The post-migraine skein of grey washing everything acts as a biological brake. Slow your roll. Don’t make too many overly big plans.
Even typing this there are visual oddities. small swirls. small flashes. the sunlight—I can’t turn away from—isn’t making it better either. All the same end of year reflections have raised questions and you’re my therapist.
For six months or so I’ve been debating buying a Leica and spending more time documenting my life directly (less artfully?) and trying to get into a pandemic era street vibe but in that time no real deep seated push has come. It’s mostly negative push from my own voice saying something is missing.
Some hard to identify part of who I was as a photographer I no longer am—for ephemeral reasons like life changing you in unexpected ways—and I try over and over to separate the threads but it’s complex.
Are the changes I see in my own work caused by substantial gear changes, the shift to medium format pulling me towards more classical subject matter, more standard views? How much sway over how you see the world comes from image format (4:3 vs 16:9 or 4:5)? How does the weight of your gear change what you’re willing to try with it? Does having only one lens choice make you stronger or weaker?
Is it just a natural maturation process all photographers go through as they grow out of the reckless youth of image making smearing vaseline or body oils on their lenses, shooting through empty water bottles, and experimenting in any way you can only to settle on other more standardized aspects of deciding an image’s quality.
Is it just age? Is it the lack of a positive feedback loop of shooting and sharing and being encouraged when people connect with what I’m doing? Is it the natural side effect of going deeper into print which demands so much more precision and more photographic fundamentals like composition over emotional content. You can share all sorts of things that work for quick sharing, and quick viewing but mean nothing as a print. Frankly most of my work till now fits that and as I’ve tried to go deeper into the print it’s giving me fits about what is worth shooting, what is worth thinking about and what isn’t which isn’t my natural way. I usually feel my way to subjects.
I have felt plagued by constraints. Medium format constraints. The weight and size of the gear. The limited lens options and hard as it is to sort of explain in words, the psychological weight of knowing you have some of the finest gear in the world now what? It’s a slow winnowing of technical excuses for lazy work, or boring work and there’s a trap waiting there too. The trap of this picture was taken on the finest sensor, with the finest lens, exposed correctly, edited well, and so should stand up as something valuable, whether it appeals to the heart, or mind, or soul in any way or not. I see a lot of photographers land here over time and it’s not what I want.
All of this front of mind then when I decided to just focus on something new for a while and see if it lights any fires, or creates any strong feelings about what I’m seeing.
I picked up a very pretty Fuji X-T5 and an extreme telephoto lens (which you just can’t do on medium format cameras) and I’ve set out with two things in mind these past few days. More wildlife and more abstractions.
If you have any interest in a review of either of these leave a comment. I’m not sure with this varied audience exactly why you’re reading or what you’re into. I’d love some feedback.
It turns out wildlife is hard to come by in winter without a lot of prep and hard work. I spent several days trying to find owls, or moose, or even some hawks but never had any luck. I did find a herd of buffalo but I’ve yet to get a shot I love. Extreme telephoto is very challenging.
Outside of that ridiculous purchase nothing much is happening. The barrage of migraines has slowed everything to a crawl. I get out when I feel I can handle the light and if I feel like i can stare at a screen more than work demands I try to inch closer to other editing goals for projects but things are very much stalled out till I get my body back on track.
I wanted to write more but this has taken weeks to get out already.
I’ll leave you with an interesting book I’m reading. I heard the author on a podcast and generally I avoid books like this he has some interesting ideas worth thinking about if change is something you think is important. I do.