the dreaded ramble

[bmattock]

Sometimes I think that a boot to the head is really all we need to get things moving along again.

I have gone through not just days, but years, perhaps decades of wasted motion. All potential squandered on the nasty business of living. And then one day, one fine day, something happens to give me a boot to the head - a metaphorical shock to my system; and it as if a sleeper has awoken.

I see things a different way - or maybe the same old way but from a fresh perspective. I'm not just a lousy photographer, I'm a lousy writer and a half-witted songwriter, and I even have been known to butcher a poem or two.

When I am asleep, those months and years tumble by and it is easy to say to myself "Oh well, you never were much of a photographer anyway. And besides you have to grow up sometime, and maybe even pay the mortgage on time."

Ah, but that's precisely the poison that we dose ourselves with. We fool ourselves into thinking that life is what happens while we are waiting for something else. In fact, it is the something else that we should be looking for - life just gets in the way too often.

I am awake at the moment - perhaps tomorrow I'll be asleep again, despite my best intentions not to let this happen yet again. So I have to treasure this moment, I don't know when I'll have it again - I may wake up and ten more years have passed. And I'll be pretty darn ticked off if that happens, let me tell you.

So, while I am awake, I am going to point my camera at everything that seems vaguely interesting. I am going to experiment. I am going to scribble a line of prose or poetry and be not afraid that it may stinketh up the joint.

I rejoice in my own roaring and ramping, and I dance the dance of celebration of myself, in a way that only a short, fat, bald man of 43 can. And that is - with abandon - but somewhat gently.

And that's the name of that tune.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[rover]

"Sometimes I think we try too hard, instead of being relaxed about it and just enjoying it."

joe

Now, after all these long rambling replies, you had the answer all yourself, wrapped up and spit out in one simple sentence.

 

[back alley]

ralph,
i wish i was that smart.
i was quoting gene.

joe

 

[DougK]

Sounds familiar...

Sounds familiar...

Joe,

I hear ya. I'm probably going to echo what a lot of other folks have said, so with that in mind... WARNING: what follows is a bit of a ramble of my own... if you want you can skip right to the end, I won't mind 🙂

I started "serious photography", whatever that means, a couple of years back when I inherited my dad's K1000. I immediately ran out and shot of several rolls of film, none of which were any good although I proved to myself that I could in fact handle basic photographic techniques. Got depressed and shelved the camera. A year or so later I bought a Minolta Dimage 7i digital camera. Shot a lot and nabbed some seriously great photos and then... put the camera on a shelf. Why? I don't really know. Maybe it just seemed too easy or seemed like cheating or something. Maybe I was just bored or burnt out since I took my camera with me EVERYWHERE. I recently started surfing the web while in the process of looking for a "spark", found this site, bought a couple of inexpensive RFs off eBay, a Seagull TLR, and a scanner, ran out and shot a bunch of film which was all... technically OK but still unsatisfying. Hmm, what to do? Am I really not any good at this after all? Should I just hang it up?

Then, my significant other charged me with a mini-project: she wanted photos of butterflies to decorate her house and said "Wait, don't you take pictures as a hobby? Would you mind doing this for me?" Oh, and the exhibit was ending the day after my upcoming weekend visit was to end. Suddenly, I had a project with a deadline and a subject I had never shot before. I packed up the trusty Minolta without a thought, scooted down to Indianapolis, and got busy. Result? We had a fantastic afternoon at White River Gardens and I got some of the best photos I've ever taken.

What did I learn? Several important things I think I wouldn't have, couldn't have, learned any other way:

1) I need a challenge to give me focus and to force me to stretch myself, whether self-imposed or from somewhere else.
2) I 'm far more comfortable with digital cameras than film. I hadn't realized how much working with film just feels alien to me, but somehow my digital camera "fits" me best and allows me to get past worrying about technique and concentrate on what I see (maybe this is the wrong forum to be saying that, but Epson IS coming out with a manual digital RF.... ahem, moving on...).
3) Change is good. Seriously. Normally I avoid change like the plague but like Bill said above, sometimes a boot to the head is what you need to get you past the flat spots.
4) Putting the cameras away for a while made me miss photography and WANT to shoot instead of feeling like I HAD to become HCB Junior or something.
5) It just plain doesn't matter if I'm any good or not as long as I enjoy doing it. It's nice to get good shots but at the end of the day, if I didn't enjoy taking them then it wasn't worth it, no matter how good the results were.

You're not alone, Joe. If you feel like you need a break, take one. Don't worry about for how long, just put the camera away for a bit. Walk around, see things without a viewfinder. One day, you'll see something that will grab your attention, an idea will form, and before you know it, you'll be reaching for a camera again.

Best wishes,
Doug K.