There’s been a lot going on for me right now. Where do I start? Let’s see, maybe at the beginning?
Sometimes, you feel as if so much is happening and yet where to begin? How to even get a grip, right? And yet, quietly, sitting in the corner, is that image you always wanted to make. Maybe it’s a bustling street corner or maybe it’s the visual representation of a lonely tree basking in its solitude but, somehow, that image is calling you in, pulling you. It’s your go to place. It’s you comfort food. It’s your safe space in a land of crazy. That image sits in wait, in the back of your mind, waiting patiently for you to give it life. It wants to be. It needs to be. And yet, somehow, only you can make it happen. Only you can bring it life, can bring it to life actually. Only you can make it be.
Photography has always been a coping mechanism. It’s a way of dealing with the world. When the world gets crazy, heck, the images are there, they will always be there. Photography allows you to travel, even if you don’t get to move out of the studio. It’s an escape hatch. It’s a safety valve. It’s like the car in an old Bruce Springsteen song-it roars into life and whisks you away from all that is miserable in the world. It takes you places. In the old Springsteen songs, Mary sat in the passenger seat, the car took them away, and the highway, it was the highway, that gave them life, brought them to be as we remember them. For me, it’s always been the camera and the image. The image is like that highway, always there, always present. It’s the image that roars to life and lives out its existence in glory right in front of our eyes.
Yeah, there’s been a lot going on. A lot. When I say I lot, I’m sure I’m thinking too myself, awe man, it’s been too much, way too much. How am I going to even deal with all of this right now? But, the thing is, it doesn’t really matter anymore. You know why? Yeah, it’s the image. It’s the image that’ll always be there, always keep me going, keep me pressing on, like a beacon in the fog or a harbor in a tempest. Somehow, some way, even when it’s all gone a little bit crazy, in fact just when it seems like everything has gone totally nuts, that’s when the image shines through. Yeah, I’m so going to take a picture of something real soon now, I can feel it. It must be all of that crazy in the air right now.
One thing is for sure. There sure is a lot of crazy in the air right now and thank the universe I’ve got a camera that still works.
Until next time…
