Here’s another quick project: Grab the kids, find a trail, and start shooting.
I used to do more of this type of work, coming up with a simple idea and grabbing the family to execute it. Now, with a busy life, it’s harder to think this way.
Thank goodness for my wife, who saw a sunny evening and a trail full of spring flowers and got us out of the house.
Small, lovely steps.
“I find photography a way of capturing what I’m feeling and sharing it with others.” – Om Malik
All the fun stuff happens in the spring.
Not only is spring my favorite season, but it’s when my life seems to change the most. Things that have happened to me in spring in the recent past:
My first daughter was born in late summer. Otherwise, all the big stuff in my life takes place from March to April. A season of change.
And so it goes this year as well: I just accepted a new position as the internal communications manager at Dawn Foods, here in Jackson. It’s another career pivot. My previous roles have all involved external communications: social media, public relations, website work, advertising. Now, it’s all in house – a skill set I’ve developed over my entire career. I’ve always, since the very beginning, been the go-to person for internal communications. This month, I’ll make it a career.
Just as March is a messy, transitional month from season to season, life has been messy and in transition for about a year now. A few ups, quite a few downs, and lots of struggling with productivity, passion, and maybe even depression. My hope is that this new position will clear up, and clean up, a few of those messes.
Time to break out the Canonet.
After thinking about my favorite type of camera – small, single lens, 35-45mm range – I loaded a roll of Agfa Vista 400 and hit the streets for a just-starting-to-feel-like-spring afternoon in Ann Arbor.
From loading to dropping film off at the camera store took less than an hour. I had 24-ish chances to capture something walking around an unfamiliar neighborhood. And I had 40mm to express what I saw, with a rangefinder focusing mechanism to express it.
I also had a serious limitation: the bright, sunny afternoon was killer when the Canonet’s highest shutter speed was 1/500. That, combined with a 400 ISO film speed, meant having to pull the ISO down a bit, or else the camera refused to take a photo. Chalk it up to one big learning experience.
The point is, I took the Canonet for a spin, and blew through a 24 exposure roll of film. That old saying about potato chips, that you can’t eat just one? Same rule applied to that roll of Agfa Vista. It was easy to just keep visually snacking.
Spring is, far and away, my favorite season. Waking up out of winter, flowers and trees blossoming, trips to the greenhouse, yard work and walks around the neighborhood – plus those perfect May days in Michigan, where the temperature reaches a perfect mid 70s.
Bring it on.
Showing Signs of Life – Horton, Michigan
I do love summers in Michigan, but man – the other seasons offer so much more, visually. In fall, you have the colors. Winter has frost and ice. Spring has the whole Earth waking up (like here).
Summer? It’s all green.
Between Itself and Us – Concord, Michigan
Cool busted bridge down on the Kalamazoo River, between Albion and Concord.
Seventy degrees and sunny – just give me that.
I wait all year for May days. Those warm, sunny, apple-blossom-scented days with a gentle breeze and the birds chirping. After a cold, bitter winter in Michigan, it’s these kinds of days in May that keep us all sane. Gives us something to look forward to.
The problem this year is that the tree blossoms won’t last long, with the wind and the rain. Us and the bees – we have a short window of springtime opportunity.
So make it last.
Make it last and give us a bit of the warm, pleasant days before the grogginess of summer. Before our modest humidity takes hold, and people start turning on their air conditioners.
Give us a few days of short-sleeves-and-pants weather, where we won’t be all sticky by sundown. Where we can warm up in the sun, and cool off with the breeze.
Let that scent linger, just a little bit, and fill our nose with memories and hope. Give the bees something to be busy with.
Make it last.
