The feeling that I abandoned the medium has been with me for some time now. I’ve had projects on hold and have been around the world a couple times since I last shared an image. My strong views and feeling of self worth have kept me away for far too long. I’ve changed a lot over the years but my “photography values” haven’t. When I first started my tag line for my site was “we live in a beautiful world” from the Coldplay song. The goal of my photography was since the beginning that the beauty is all around us. Early on I shared all of the photos that I thought were beautiful and years down the line I focused more on the unknown.
My frustrations started when I started seeing photos of common tourist attractions sold at shows. One of the images that gets me fired up is Peter Lik’s image titled “phantom”. This image was shot in antelope canyon which I’ve been to on a “photo tour”. When I went many years ago I was literally the only photographer there (this tour has since closed due to the amount of people who swarmed it). It was at the time the only way you could take a tripod into the canyon. My guide was clearly not pleased about me being the only one there and he lacked all positivity. While on the tour he would point and mumble “we call that the bear...” and various other names. When I stopped at the part of the tour with same perspective as Lik’s “phantom”, the guide tossed sand onto the rock shelf and had it fall down like a waterfall. So where am I going with this rant? His photo is basic and tired but that’s old news. My goal with photography was to show parts of the world that wouldn’t be found on postcards but is equally as beautiful. One of my sayings about photography is either you are great with business or the art, very rarely both. An idol of mine is Thomas Mangelsen and he’s one of the rare ones. Check out his site or one of his galleries! (He has a beautiful one in La Jolla).
There are couple of other facts that led to my retirement. The rise of social media made the “art of photography” feel more like crabs in a barrel and less art. The market is beyond saturated and our phones are capturing incredible images. Another one of my “Peter-isms” is that photography is 45% luck, 45% patience, and 10% skill. Of course there’s a lot more to it but in a lot of cases that’s all you need. The reason I think I was able to capture so many good images is because I put in the work and the time on the road which increased my chance of getting it all right.
The final reason is probably the best. I’ve been in a stable relation ship for almost 7 years now. I was “artsy” because I was typically in a semi depressed state. I honestly haven’t felt inspired to do any actual “art” that inspiration typically came from a sad place. This wasn’t always the case but happily it seems like its been for some time.
As a goal of 2020 I would like to eventually publish the 2-3 projects that I’ve been sitting on for years. The first is a set of infrared images which is super unique to me (because no one shoots infrared) and a set of drone images. The third is a set which I think I’m going to call “tourist” which is just a series of places we all know.
So I think if I publish this it will semi force me to actually put out some work. Ironically the last image I posted on this blog was from antelope canyon 6 years ago, the same place I spent a paragraph bitching about earlier.
I hope to see you all soon.
