Here’s the truth: I’m a boring traveler.
It’s not about the independence. It’s not about a bucket list. It’s not about the dare of it all. I’m not chasing entertainment. I don’t want to become a part of all these places for specific thrills.
The mental shift required to just move– that’s the thrill in itself. To completely surrender control, and trade it in for the authenticity of the unexpected. For the perfect delight of not knowing where you’re going, what you want, or what’s going to happen next.
Realizing, noticing, the world spinning around you.
Let’s just sit on the subway for hours and watch everyone come and go
Walk around the sidewalks and watch the people living
Stand on the platform and hear people speaking a different language in every direction
Stroll through the countryside and notice all the tiny universes within every living thing
I would probably bore you to death. Because it’s not consciously about making my story; it’s about immersing myself in their stories. To see all that I am, and am not. Which does turn into my story in the end. But quietly.
And if easy silence is significant, then that’s my easy silence with the universe– everything spinning and connecting into a web around me and knowing that I’m right where I’m supposed to be within that. My sort of religious experience.
It’s to gain perspective. Bigger world, smaller problems. To remember how delightfully insignificant I am. When I stay in one place, I start constructing a life around myself. I starting thinking I’m in control. I’m not in control. I don’t want to be in control. I don’t know what I’m doing, what I want, what I need. Not really.
I can’t construct my life. That’s not what I’m here for.
So, instead, I want to move. To revolve around everything else. To hide as the insignificant traveler at the train station. To trade in my illusion of control for true meandering and find myself in those unexpected, inevitable instances…
The guy who couldn’t read the schedule on the way on the Milan, and then told me all about his uncle living in the gardens in Venice as we waited on the platform.
The journalist from Rome who let my borrow her cell phone when mine’s screen died upon landing in Catania, but only after a half hour of chit chat about photojournalism and the differences between the US and Canada.
The Indian couple at the Chicago airport who didn’t think Americans expressed enough emotion, told me about their kids’ lives and their Indian festival seasons.
But those aren’t things I chased out. I didn’t construct them. I couldn’t. And I can’t explain to you how “me” I felt, talking about random things with strangers. That’s where we are supposed to be. If we’d taken a different train, been on a different platform, chosen another airport to fly out of…
And that’s phenomenal, really– in letting go, being small, and merely moving, life becomes so much more real than anything you could have thought up for yourself.
The following photos were for an assigned a “personal space” assignment for a class. I had already captured this specific space on film, but of course that wouldn’t do for this assignment. So with February light instead of late August, I attempted again…
This was the first family I ever took portraits for, so it was a nice full circle kind of shoot. :) We still didn’t quite have the standard sun shine lighting, but I’m kinda getting the hang of working with this mood…
The weather was thinking about raining, but I’m pretty sure the kids’ energy drove it all away!
Sometimes we just have to capture the “essence” of Northwest Decembers…
On the Intimacy of Photography (This is Probably an Example of a Letter That One Should Write and Then Just Keep to Herself)
Alas, I am not going to:
Dear World of Competent (and aspiring-to-be-competent) Photographers,
Saying “I’m going to challenge myself to take photos with only my iPhone for a month” is not a noteworthy accomplishment in and of itself. It’s quite like saying “I’m going to challenge myself to only sleep with hookers for a month.”
I’ve heard this kind of declaration several times on the internet lately. And I’m not saying there’s nothing to be said for iPhone’s role in photography (do I browse instagram? You betcha); sure, it’s close at hand, easy to access, and the images can certainly be of parallel quality, in terms of usability and tech specs. But the experience of taking the photo is entirely different. I think photography is about more than the quality of the final image.
I’m the last person to negate the photographic value and importance of simply taking photos, and am the first to assure you that any kind of camera can be well used to facilitate “seeing.” And yes, a photo that you can take spur of the moment is better than not having taken a photo at all. But let’s not put things on pedestals that do not belong on pedestals.
Exclusively iPhone photography provides no intimate interaction between you, the light, and some sort of light sensor. Ya know, the magic part.
Photography is about a love affair with light; seeing the scene made possible by the light via finding the light and knowing the light and capturing the essence of the light, and thus exposing the proper amount of light in a certain manner. You and your iPhone photo, a wonderful moment though it may capture, don’t know intimacy like that. Don’t confuse yourself.
Love,
Kate
After going through old family photo albums this afternoon, I ranted to my mother about the perils of digital photography, camera phones and Instagram. Then I went to get this roll of film developed, and ordered, as per usual, digital scans instead of tangible prints, because they’re about a million times less expensive… sigh.
What better way to kick off being back home from Ohio than a shoot in the mountains?
Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m thankful for my coast-to-coast family branches, and the opportunities I have to spend time with these wonderful people. And to be able to take their pictures. :)
