Then and now

While visiting my family in Florida for Christmas I wound up in Miami to shoot a portrait session at Vizcaya. A few years ago I happened upon Vizcaya in a book on gardens and I knew I wanted to photograph there. In July I was able to go, but artistically I just wasn't present. I just wasn't "seeing" things the way I used to. The last year or two has been a bit of a struggle for this. I so enjoy my freelance commissions but have trouble with the balance between it and my own personal work. I go shooting for "me" so infrequently that when I do, I feel all this pressure to see great things and come up with new stuff for my portfolio. Consequently I don't see a thing.

Years ago I used to take my camera with me everywhere. I never worried about "making art" - somehow it was more about recording and remembering the days. Even casual snapshots wound up getting worked on in the darkroom. I had a blast. This was my life. I think when my camera got bigger I stopped taking it along. And then digital changed things too (but that's another post). Film makes me slow down. I can't see what I just photographed. And I know I could shut off the display on the digital, but I'm too tempted to look. Film nudges me to move on without stopping to second-guess what I shot. It puts the focus on my experience of a place, rather than on whether or not I just took a fabulous picture of it.

This visit to Vizcaya was so different from the one six months ago. I brought digital, yes, but I also brought film. I walked around just looking. I had fun. It was the exact same place but I saw it so differently. The shift has come because I am finally trying to let go of the pressure to create art every time I look through my viewfinder. I am just having plain-old fun again. If something portfolio-worthy turns up, great, but it's not as important as seeing the magic wherever I am and getting it down.

NOLA

At the beginning of December I went to New Orleans for a portfolio review event which turned out to be so much more. The reviews themselves were truly a learning experience; I received great feedback about my work which has really set me thinking hard about why and what I photograph. Because I tend to hole up when I work, it was so good for me to meet other photographers and share our portfolios outside of the context of the reviews. I was most inspired by everyone's amazing imagery!

Best of all was New Orleans itself. Back in Vermont days when my friend Ethan read a lot of Anne Rice, we spent many an afternoon making portraits in the cemeteries - capes and all - wishing that we could go to New Orleans. Fourteen years later, there we were.

I think we all have a part of ourselves that we miss. A part that's maybe most who we are but that gets covered over with the stuff of daily life after a while. For me, that part is Vermont fourteen years ago when I had a studio and homemade darkroom above the Main Street shops in Bristol. Up an immense flight of dusty old steps and down a long, Poe-esque hallway with creaky wood floors. My gargoyles guarding the door. Huge windows on pulleys.

New Orleans brought me back to that. Time with Ethan brought me back to that and I am grateful that we were able to do a bit of lurking about in between my reviews and just wandering around the city.