I’ve been reading past posts (mostly for reference for other correspondance) on my old blog and I keep re-realizing how much I used to write before the camera made its way into my life. Whether it’s just my ego talking, or the aspect of sanity preservation that a good write gives, I do really miss it when confronted with my past work.
I started this blog with the idea that it would give me a new place to put thoughts, and yet it’s still my stepchild blog. Granted, the past month’s been overwhelming with the whole Episode of the Knee, but still. I’ve never been one to cultivate regular practices in my life. The meditation practice for six years was probably the closest thing I had, but even then it was prominent in my life because my boyfriend’s lifestyle became my lifestyle. And now without that particular boyfriend, the perceived need to sit in meditation twice a day left me too.
Writing daily (or at least often) became the first practice that I made for myself, even more than learning tango and dancing ever was. And yet I’ve so clearly chucked it in favor of the almighty Canon.
I think I’m lopsided without my writing habit. Need to work on that.
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Today I was out on an assignment that I hope will yield some new work for me. We’ll see. I feel like I am straining to find photos lately, as if they used to just fall in my lap somehow. Even though that’s not true, and it’s more my mood than anything else, my forays out with the camera aren’t providing the raw pleasure I’ve had before. We all go through slumps (when I was blogging about tango, we used to discuss the same issue about dance, too) and so I’m well aware that this sensation of restlessness and yearning is a passing phase and it could be as early as tomorrow that I snap out of it and fall in love with some image I capture.
But part of me realizes I’m trying too hard. I feel like I’m looking to find the Big Picture when maybe I should be looking for the tiny details. And so what else is new.
A while ago I was browsing in Green Apple Books and was reading an intro to a photography book about Imogen Cunningham (stop me if I’ve mentioned this anecdote before, but I can’t remember what I repeat lately). Anyway, the story was that for a few years, she had several small children in diapers at home all at the same time. She couldn’t venture out to take photos like usual and was pretty much resigned to taking photos of the plants in her back yard. I think about that, and what it would be like to be forced to make do with such a limited realm of experience, and then also realize that it can, and perhaps must, be done at some point.
I would like to take this thinking into my photography and also my writing. More balance, more detail. Less striving. And more daily.
3 Comments
My suggestion, extreme perhaps:
Confine yourself to somewhere and dissect it with your lens.
You have twenty-four hours of varying light to capture all the facets from different angles.
My attraction to you was your display of concept; taking a photo to create a story, even though the photos were from different encyclopedias. I bet there are more concepts within you.
I understand. I find it difficult to find the happy medium of balance between my meditation of the image and the word. It always seemed that the image was winning, so I began forcing myself to journal constantly. It is still difficult to maintain a writing habit daily, but forcing myself turned into pleasure, and eventual discovery that writing can be as just as abstract as photography. That is why I journal on a sketch pad. That way, their is literally nothing but time itself to restrict me.
This seems to be everywhere lately. I was just over at Relyn’s – she’s teaching herself photography, going through those pains. I typed out a long response for her – something that’s always been helpful for me. Please forgive me for just copying & pasting it here, but it’s really long, and maybe it will mean something to you, as it always has for me.
“Did we talk about Zen & The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance? This part? It is a bit long, but it made me think of you; I will try to shorten it a bit:
He is, of course, a teacher.
~ One of them, a girl . . . wanted to write a 500 word essay about the United States. He was used to the sinking feeling that comes from statements like this, & suggested . . . that she narrow it down to just Bozeman. ~ When the paper came due she didn’t have it and was quite upset. She had tried & tried but she just couldn’t think of anything to say. ~ She wasn’t bluffing him, she really couldn’t think of anything to say, & was upset by her inability to do as she was told. ~ It just stumped him. Now he couldn’t think of anything to say. A silence occurred, & then a peculiar answer: “Narrow it down to the main street of Bozeman.” It was a stroke of insight. ~ She nodded dutifully & went out. But just before her next class she came back in real distress . . . still couldn’t think of anything to say & couldn’t understand why, if she couldn’t think of anything about all of Bozeman, she should be able to think of something about just one street. ~ He told her angrily, “Narrow it down to the front of one building on the main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper left-hand brick.” ~ Her eyes opened wide. ~ She came in the next class with a puzzled look & handed him a 5000 word essay on the front of the Opera House on the main street of Bozeman, Montana. “I sat in the hamburger stand across the street,” she said, “& started writing about the the first brick, & the 2nd brick, & then by the 3rd brick it all started to come & I couldn’t stop. They thought I was crazy, & they kept kidding me, but here it all is. I don’t understand it.” ~ Neither did he. ~
And then he begins to think about blockage, and why we get that, and it gets even longer & deeper (though I’ve left out the deep parts in the above section. LOL!) These 2 or 3 pages have always been an inspiration to me, though I forget about them unless something reminds me. I try to see that upper left-hand brick in everything, to step back, to relax into it. I wish I always succeeded.”
So there – I am moving my comment from blog to blog today. How silly & vain, I know, but like I said, maybe helpful.