I’ve been thinking a lot about photography and what it means to me. It’s my livelihood; it helps pay my bills. It grants me access to my community in an intimate manner through the conferences and events that I shoot. It documents my day to day through snapshots taken on my iphone. It reminds me of where I’ve been, shows me how my past unfolded.
Sixteen years ago in late March, I signed up for an online class, Picture Spring with Tracey Clark, and it changed my world. I photographed prompts with my camera, shared in an online classroom and made new friends. Photography became my whole world, my passion, my purpose. It was an emotionally engaging experience.
Two years ago, I met up with one of those friends in Berlin, and we discussed that experience–that awakening–and she compared it to a love affair, and I think that she’s right. After all, I once wrote this to describe my feelings about photography:
“Last year I started thinking about my camera, this year I became serious. No longer just an instrument to document my travels, my camera has become a tool for documenting my life, my thoughts, my everyday actions. But most importantly, it has transformed my world from a place of often maddening frustration into a self-discovery of beauty, gratitude and wonder….I discovered my key, my sense of place in this world and my voice through the wondrous lens of my camera.”
My friend and I discussed how we missed the love affair, how we mourned it. That initial thrill of excitement, that obsessive compulsion to learn everything, try everything, do everything discovering our craft was gone. That slow burn of longing, of creation vanished over time. We both wondered where, and why.
And I miss it. I miss the buzz of possibility, the eagerness to edit beauty into being, the adventure of chasing down magnificent light. I miss it that part of my being.
How do I feel about photography today? It’s complicated.
What’s left of the burn is more analytical, more technical, more practical. More pay the bills, more what’s best for the assignment, more what needs to be done; less what I’d like to do. Will I ever return to place of personal fulfillment? I wish I could say I’m on the verge of a breakthrough, but instead I’ll leave you with platitudes of “time will tell”. We’ll just have to see.
How about you? How has your relationship with photography changed over time.
Until next time,
Holly