As you have noticed, I’m not shooting (or posting) as much as I have been in the last…oh, I don’t know, 15 years. About that. There have been other ebbs, but not this drastic. Basically I’ve been off photography so much that I barely went out last fall.
Fall! Fall is a photographer’s favorite season pretty much always, but I couldn’t be bothered. Or arsed as the Brits often say. Why? I’m a pretty chill photographer most of the time, just doing what I want and not worrying about what other people think. Trouble is, I was worried about what I thought. That was the problem.
So I’ll try to work through it with these shots from December 2024 – the day after Christmas to be exact and at my favorite place on the Prairie River. It was a pretty overcast day so there wasn’t a lot of dramatic texture or modeling to be had, but I could play with polarizers and neutral density filters to make some images of ice and the roaring water. Ok, and a couple of landscapes, too, but first … more whining.
Ok, not really whining, but here’s the spanner in the works; I got bored. Bored with my work. Bored with my approach. Bored with my subjects. The whole time I was out doing these I was thinking “why am I doing this again?“, “how is this adding anything new to the universe?” and “why bother?“. Even though I was having a decently good time fooling around on the shoreline and trying not to fall through the ice shelves, this corrosive line of thinking just ruined it for me. And it continued even after the fact. I barely even looked at what I shot, much less processed anything. I just thought it was a waste of time since I’d done so much of it in the past – shooting ice formations on a river or brook. Here’s another one –
It got me down. I didn’t even really comment on NPN more than once or twice a day either. Just couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm for my own work or anyone else’s.
Despite that it seems my eye for interesting ice and landscape compositions was still working just fine. When I went back through this folder the other day (writing this on March 10, editing on April 20), I found all of these. Some of the ice sculptures are darn good and I am glad that I had the presence of mind to mess with different shutter speeds so I could choose the best one in post. The light wasn’t spectacular, but it feels properly wintery.
The thing is, I still have an abiding love for nature photography and the desire to go out and do it. When others pull off some terrific shot, I love that, too and it’s a challenge to come up with insightful and original critiques when asked. Right now lots of birds are back and I am going to get out to photograph them soon (still haven’t). With temperatures warming into the 40s and 50s.
So am I back? To some extent I am. I’ve gone out once in February and once so far in March and had excellent times and brought back decent shots. I’ll post the March ones soon (eye roll). The experience of being in nature either on foot or in the kayak is still something I want, but the idea that I’m just repeating myself is still rattling around in my head. Some possible remedies for that have come to mind – using my photo blind to set up and see if I can do any wildlife work, that’s aways exciting. Another is to explore subjects I haven’t paid attention to before. That one will take some more imagination and I think one way to engage might be to simply park myself in one spot and really look. I’ve done it somewhat in the kayak and it’s been rewarding.
Most of all though, I think I need to stop putting pressure on myself when I’m just out to have a good time. Oh sure, no one wants to be static and have a portfolio that never changes. We all want to grow and try new things to increase our skills, but there isn’t anything wrong with shooting what you like over and over, so long as you get satisfaction out of it. And there’s the rub; I’m just not satisfied with what I’m doing right now. And that’s why a new direction just might be the thing I need.
So it’s April and I still haven’t been out to shoot. Birds are back and temps are climbing, but I haven’t picked up a camera. I feel bad, but not that bad. I miss it, but not that much. It’s weird. I don’t know what, if anything, I need to do about it. Maybe just put it down for good. Nah, that probably won’t happen, but the intervals might be long at least for the foreseeable future. Sorry to be such a bad blogger, but there it is. Thanks for putting up with me.
People speak, when older, about regrets of things not done. My regret is that I spent 40+ years trying to answer the question “What is the value of my art?” I never could answer that question and it stymied me – kept me from doing anything artistic – was an excuse to not do and just glide along with a vague discontentment and dissatisfaction.
Upon getting ill, taking time off for a year’s medical leave, and retiring, I realized I had spent so much wasted time trying to find an answer to an unanswerable question (for me – not for others) I had never fulfilled my childhood dream of being an artist. I was this and that throughout my working life, much of which gave satisfaction, but nothing on the level of painting.
Finally, I just said in a very vulgar way to just do it and forget everything else. Forget the value, is it good, is it bad, do others like it, do I like it, do I dislike it? Just do it (much as I dislike that advert).
And I am.
I get frustrated, annoyed, pleased, discerning, realize I need to improve, have improved. But the key is that none of this would have happened if I had not made the choice to just do it. That creative element is always in me and while there are other creative endeavors, none satisfies my soul like painting. If your soul cries out for photography, for being out in nature, to create pictures, then I say just do it and don’t think about the results. They will come later and evolve as they will.
Yes, you may have goals, but just do to live and do and value the doing and being and do not worry about the value of an unanswerable question. Life is evolution. Life is adaptation. Life is what you choose to do – as well as choose what not to do. This is the value of life.