And so We Begin…
I’m not surprised that 2020 caused a new low for me regarding the human species. While there is beauty to be found around every corner if we only just look closely enough, I cannot rest easy knowing there is so much malicious intent and hurtful behavior. How can a species so demonstrably brilliant also be capable of so much destruction and hate? In this context, I often ponder why I do photography—how can it possibly matter against a backdrop of so much global chaos?
As if that thinking isn’t gloomy enough, there are other headwinds to face. An owner of a local art gallery once said to me, when I inquired why she’s displayed no photography in all the years I’ve been visiting the gallery, “Everyone’s a photographer”. Her glib response implied that a.) she does not appreciate photography as a valid art form, and b.) since everyone has a relatively decent camera at almost all times, there is little appetite for viewing, let alone purchasing, photographs. With art curators like that, who needs critics?
Not one to lean heavily on resolutions for the new year, I do intend to make 2021 a pivotal year in this work I so obsessively pursue. I feel the clock ticking, and though I do not have a complete idea of what I want to do with this work, I simply know I am driven to keep producing. It would be a delight to generate income from the relentlessness of it all.
Art, and photography in particular, has brought me comfort my entire life, even though I didn’t realize it for decades. I spend incalculable hours poring through photo social media, weeding out the often prolific mediocrity, seeking the images that have been tinkered with for countless hours to “get it right”. I know I’ve found one when I involuntarily exclaim out loud to myself—I can’t help it; that’s what good art does. I have a visceral appreciation of the risks and dangers involved with photographing the outdoor world.
Just like everyone else, I have no idea where any of this life is going, or what kind of calamity or rapturous celebration is lurking around the corner. But I do know that my aim moving forward will be to focus on my refining my art, no matter why I do this. I hope this work touches you somewhere inside, even if you may not know exactly why. I hope that it might cause you to exclaim involuntarily to yourself—even if you can’t help it.
Happy 2021 social media mavens! Let the future, finally, bring more justice, more joy, and more preservation of this wonderful planet that holds us so tightly.