I’ll be back some time in July. It’s nice outside, my cameras are lonely, the satellite dish installs are picking up, and I have a kid who wants to play ball with her dad.
See you all again soon. :-)
A generous soul left the following appraisal of my photography in a comment over at Kate’s blog:
Static and boring. Colors are either nondescript or a little bit over the top. Pretty but not stimulating. Flat dynamics.
I give them a passing grade, 5 out of a possible 10.
Try making a statement first then concentrate on the visual secondarily. — “Ansel Adams”
Fair enough. Like many areas of life, art is very subjective. That which turns my crank probably leaves many others feeling nonplussed, and that’s all right. There are those who are partial to Salvadore Dali and who think Andy Warhol was a genius. I can’t stand either, frankly. I’m more of a Hieronymous Bosch and Sandro Botticelli man. My photography won’t float everyone’s boat, and I can deal with that.
What I don’t particularly appreciate is the lecture on ‘making a statement’. To understand my photography and the ’statement’ it makes, you need to understand the person behind the camera.
I was raised by a single mother who really had no business being a mother. She tended towards abusive perverts who got off on beating and raping women and small children. I went through eight years of that hell with almost nightly abuse.
By the time I was twelve I was a raging alcoholic (abusers find it easier to control kids when they’re under the influence of something), and a pathological liar as well (after eight years of that shit you get pretty damn good at making something up when the teacher asks you to tell the class what your family did that weekend). Needless to say, I had some behaviour problems that precluded me from doing well at school. I dropped out at age sixteen so that I could concentrate on the important things in life: drinking, taking drugs, selling drugs, and chasing skirts.
I was so far ahead of the average alcoholic and drug user and I managed to crash and burn at age twenty-three. My home and posessions disappeared in a bankruptcy and I wound up homeless for a brief stint. I had just crawled into the safety of a twelve step program and started dealing with the wreckage that was my life when the next disaster hit: paranoid schizophrenia (the amphetamine abuse didn’t do me any favours in this department).
I’m not out to change the world through my photos because I’ve learned that when you change the world it changes you, too.
My schizophrenic symptoms were so severe that one of the doctors treating me told me bluntly that I “would never work again, would probably never go to school, would probably never marry, and should never have children.” However, with luck, “they would be able to use medications to stablize me enough that I would be somewhat comfortable in an assisted living situation” (group home).
That was well over a decade ago, and I’ve accomplished pretty much everything that I was told I couldn’t do, and I’ve managed to log in over fourteen years of clean and sober living as well. I’ve got the world’s best wife, a wonderful daughter, good friends, a career that pays the bills, and I’m even turning into a half decent photographer (or at least I have several hundred complimentary e-mails to that effect).
Too many of those who’ve been through what I’ve been through are left broken and embittered. There’s no beauty left in the world, no magic, only pain. Granted that much of their ongoing misery is self-inflicted, I’m grateful to be one of the few that has been able to spot that trap before getting caught in it — most don’t get out again. More than anything else I credit my camera with keeping me out of the pity trap. There’s just something therapeutic about going out nearly every day and looking for beauty and then sharing it with others. Those trips across a meadow with a camera in hand are what keep me in one piece, more so than any antipsychotic medication could ever hope to.
Being a photographer has helped me bridge the gap between surviving and living.
I’m especially proud of my photography. You think photography is easy? Try composing an image with a pantheon of malicious voices telling you that you’re shit, that the alien overlords are trying to control you through medical implants, that your camera is a piece of alien technology that monitors your every move, and that your only hope for salvation is to overdose on over the counter drugs. And even though you understand on an intellectual level that this isn’t real, there’s that animal sensation lurking in your gut that tells you otherwise. It feels bloody well real enough. It takes everything I have and then some to push through all of that, get in vibe with my surroundings, and make the image.
Does my work make a ’statement’? The individual images do not — I stopped striving for this a couple of years back when I finally realized where I was coming from. Collectively, however, my photographs do make a few statements…
I’ve reached the point in my life where I no longer have to understand why things happen — they just do. I’ve learned to be grateful and to take delight in the better things without needing to peek behind the curtain to see the wizard.
I’ve learned that no matter how ugly, dark, and depressing the world gets, there’s still beauty to be found if you’re willing to look hard enough for it.
I’ve learned to cherish simplicity.
I’ve learned that a walk through the prairies with a camera in hand fills the holes in my soul that numerous former vices left unplugged.
I’ve learned to celebrate family and friends, my surroundings, and to cherish the history that has been left to me.
I’ve learned that while honesty is best, there are some stories that should be embellished before they are passed on.
I’ve learned that the best way to keep any personal happiness I find is to give it away to others.
That’s it. That’s all my images say. That’s all I could ever want them to say. I’m not out to change the world through my photos because I’ve learned that when you change the world it changes you, too. I don’t want to be changed, not anymore. I like it where I am now and I’m blessed in that I’m able to share some of the magic I find in my life with others. That’s as deep as things get with me, which is to say, not very.
The kid bounced into bed with us this morning and woke me up by shoving her ice cold feet into my crotch…
Pater Familias: Hey! Where did you come from?
S.W.M.B.O: I think the stork brought her.
Half-pint: Noooooooooooooooooo!
Pater Familias: So where did you come from, then?
Half-pint: I came from the living room!
Well, I’m glad that’s settled.
May 12 - sitting around the fire
Some people delight in photographing snowflakes — no two are the same and each is a marvel worthy of consideration in its own right. Me, I’m a firebug. Besides, if our next winter is as long and dreary as this past one, I’ll need these pictures to look at later on for mental health reasons. I’m stocking up.
May 13 - staying close to home
The remainder of the images are from around our acreage, which I’m sure people are sick and tired of seeing over and over again in pictures. I would have wandered farther, but the injuries of the past few days haven’t exactly left me fleet of foot.
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
and the flames went higher.
And it burns, burns, burns
the ring of fire
the ring of fire.
– Johnny Cash
After nearly killing myself trying to mount a satellite dish out of range of some tree branches encroaching on a rooftop, it occurred to me that it would be lot more sensible (and survivable) to just trim away the offending plant matter. Not having my chainsaw with me, I borrowed a saw from the customer.
Well.
The last time this saw was pressed into service it was used to hack apart a deer. More to the point, it had obviously been used to hack apart something given the amount of dried gore that it was crusted with. If Jason Voorhees was ever to own a saw, it would be this saw.
My wife commented that my appetite seemed a bit subdued yesterday evening. There was a reason for that, and it wasn’t just a near death experience.
And this is why we have blonde jokes. Yeesh.
See? You can teach an old nerd new tricks.