Capturing Feelings
“I find photography a way of capturing what I’m feeling and sharing it with others.” – Om Malik
photography
In Like a Lion
“It’s good to see you taking photos again,” my wife told me this weekend.
Indeed. Maybe it took a freak March 1 storm that had both soaking wet rain and giant snowflakes. Maybe it took the light coming back in the morning and the evening. Maybe it took some hope on the horizon.
March is in like a lion. Me? More in like a lamb for a while. Let’s try that.
Try Not to Try
Desire, as the Buddha taught, is the source of suffering.
This is true in photography as well. New gear comes out, and photographers start sweating from Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It makes photographers feel like their gear is unworthy, and that photographs would be so much better with that new lens/camera/whatever.
Here’s a trick I learned to get over that feeling: just wait.
Wait a week. Don’t think about it. Maybe wait a bit longer.
Then: assess your feelings. Do you still desire that object?
For me, the waiting works every time. I look back at my week-ago self and wonder, what was all the fuss about? Is my life worse off? Did I suffer for not jumping on a purchase?
This strategy applies whenever I’m thinking about making a major purchase. If I wait, and I still feel strongly, then I know it’s important. If I wait and the feeling passes, I know I can either save up a bit more, wait a little longer for a discount, or just not go through with the purchase.
As Tom Petty sang, sometimes the waiting is the hardest part. Once you’re past that, you’ll make better decisions.
An Easy Decision
My heart hurts. Another school shooting, another reason for our kids (and parents!) not to feel safe, and another bunch of nothing gets fixed.
Aiden has to do school drills to practice being safe if something terrible happened. In my day, drills were for tornadoes – natural occurrences that you can’t control. Our parents had bombing drills, and we all decided that hiding from nuclear weapons wasn’t a thing we wanted to do. Hence: arms control.
Today, drills are for something we can control, but fail to do anything about. It’s silly.
Glad to see the Florida students shame our politicians, and (hopefully) many Americans who feel our kids aren’t worth protecting.
I’m pro hunting, pro owning a shotgun or a handgun – but also pro safety and controlling these killing machines from the crazies. We can have both.
Most of all, I’m in favor of kids over guns. It should be an easy decision, America.
Make And Take
Leave it to me to schedule our Family Art Studio session for the snow storm weekend.
But so it went. We drove to Ann Arbor, braving the highway traffic and slick conditions, to spend the day making art at my work.
This was the boy’s first trip to an art museum, and he had a lot of questions. Were the statues real? Why can’t you touch the art? That bust of George Washington – where’s the rest of his body? Why was that girl so hairy?
We took inspiration from Japanese graphic design and made our own poster out of cut-out shapes of colored paper. It was us and six other families – half of what was scheduled to show up.
“The difference between your art on the fridge and these drawings is that there’s a frame around them, and they’re hanging in a museum,” I said.
I hope he took the day to heart.
Snow Day
There’s nothing like a snow storm to get the family out of the cabin fever funk.
It’s also a great excuse to get the ol’ point and shoot camera out, dust off the lens, and take some photos of the outside activities. Despite the broken battery door, my Canon PowerShot SD750 still works great, and shoots fine.
This thing and me go way back. We’ve been on many adventures, from road trips through New England to hiking in Zion, and all of life before I purchased my first DSLR.
This weekend, when the snow started to accumulate, I broke out the SD750 while me and the boy went sledding, and then to capture all the fun in the yard when we got home. After all, if it gets wet, no big loss.
A side benefit: the photo files loaded lickety split into Lightroom.
Say Cheese
It’s a hard habit to break, having your kids say “cheese” whenever they see the camera come out.
Our own kids started saying “cheese” almost out of nowhere, and at a very young age.
Meanwhile, I strive for those in-between moments when taking photos of the family. I want their real faces, and real smiles, so I’ve learned to be sneaky and quick. Those in-between photos are the ones I treasure, collect, and share.
Sure, the grandparents want a nice framed photo of the kids looking at the camera and smiling. Family snapshots have looked like that since our parents were kids. Again: a hard habit to break.
Me, I want some real life in my photos.
It’s made me think about making family photos for friends and family. My paid gigs are few and far between these days, but when I do get asked about taking family portraits, I want to make a suggestion: How about we hang out for a morning, and just let me capture what happens in between the Cheeses? There’s some intimacy involved, yes, but like a good photojournalism assignment, the good pictures are made by simply being there and capturing what happens.
Gaze and Shrug
“I once needed to shout from the rooftops but have now said my piece. Can we be done at some point? Can we gaze upon this world and shrug, content with the work we’ve done? God I hope not. The mere thought of it depresses me.” – Patrick LaRoque