I feel lately I’ve spiraled into too much. Too much focus on photography. Reviewing and doing my best to sift through 12 years of captures. Buying some new gear in anticipation of once again full time traveling. Watching and watching and watching and not sleeping, photography related YouTube videos.
I’m encased in seeing and thus these days I don’t see anything. For weeks now I’ve been trying to put together a narrative and a sequence for my next book; photos I took nearly fifteen years ago in Vietnam. Some days I look at them and I only see how terrible I was framing a shot or correctly exposing. Once in a while an image captivates me, sometimes pixel perfect, sometimes imperfect to the point of unique. And then forward momentum stops; I stare, I go everywhere and no where in my mind.
Next week I’m going out into the world with two Fujifilm camera bodies, three good enough quality-not-top-of-the-line lenses, my iPhone. And now today a new purchase, a Ricoh GRiii to carry in my pocket. Enough. Maybe more than enough.
In addition, of course, memory cards, some external hard drives, a Mac Air, an iPad. A Kindle. Enough. Maybe more than enough.
Three pairs of pants. Five shirts. Week of underwear and socks, my weather proof hiking boots. Some sneakers. A you-can-scrunch-it-down-to-next-to-nothing puffy jacket. An oversized backpack for my carry-on. Smaller backpack for all the electronics. Enough. Maybe not enough.
Soon enough thousands and thousands of photographs. Why am I torturing myself, is what I’m thinking.
Why not just go off into the world and not worry about Instagram and Facebook and a blog and a website. Why not just swipe for sex instead of refining images with finger strokes. Why not drink to excess and then beach and then wail at a waiter for more alcohol and wake up beside Mr-Right-Now. Then instead of clicking repeat and repeat on a shutter button just repeat and repeat hedonistic actions.
I am not asking questions. I am working on logic. Lately the algorithmic YouTube is feeding me videos of guys in New York City who roam day and night the streets; taking pictures. Zombies with film cameras shooting and shooting— to my eyes— the same exact chiaroscuro scenes or deer-in-headlights people caught awkward aware gazes. These guys are obsessed? And yes.
That is a question. And yes. I am questioning if I am any different. The only thing that sets me apart is that for the most part. I am. Twice as old as them. And not as skilled with how to get the deep dark with the right contrasting light or the startled stare of a bystander caught unawares.
I shoot images to composition my writing. Which is not exactly prose or poetry. I see how everything is more in between or sometimes is more weighted towards either prose or poetry. I think of my two backpacks as prose. When I strap them onto my front and back they will be more like how a poem is tipsy but still stands.
So I am going out into the world with only the skeleton knowledge of some destinations. To wrap myself into the spiral of finding instances. That will inspire me. To write something, perhaps. Or just sit at a cafe and watch videos of those half my age tell me what the buttons do on my camera. Instead of taping over them so I don’t accidentally change something I don’t know how to un-change. Which is like a vortex. How we tumble down trying to fix what we didn’t mean to break.
