Trust yourself. Trust your taste. Trust your capacity to cultivate and grow and develop and make your own taste. Take recommendations from others, sure, but ultimately allow the buck to stop with you yourself. Have the courage to articulate to yourself what you do and do not like. Have the courage to challenge and stretch yourself. And ultimately have the courage to be your own tastemaker.
—Bridget Watson Payne, How Art Can Make You Happy
Photography is, above all else, for me, an experience. Not really a process. Not a product. Not a document. Not a recording or a memory. At least not fully. I take pictures like this one and bring them home. I might set this one as my desktop background for a week or so. Like falling in love with a new song and playing it over and over again till you learn the words and the melody seeps into your soul. I remember vividly walking on the boardwalk in Colonial Beach, passed Lemon’s Snack Bar and headed toward the Pool Room, Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl) by Looking Glass, blaring on the loudspeaker. Whenever I hear that song, I am immediately transported back in time where I am sixteen and a bikini is still part of my wardrobe. In the same way as a favorite song, a well-loved picture moves me through time. This picture will always be about my experience of seeing the world pared down to what really matters.
One picture | One paragraph.
I drive by this scene often. It’s on my way to and from the grocery store, the library, the gas station, the bank. My eyes stop here every single time. I’ve given thought to why that might be. At first, I thought I was drawn by a sense of sadness to this Christmas tree lot, now abandoned in the new year. I didn’t buy a tree, and I worried they would be left standing this year, when Christmas didn’t feel like Christmas at all. Every time I passed by, I almost stopped. I kept hearing the voice of photography mentors about the pictures they never made and regretted. In my head, the picture wasn’t worth braving the cold frosty morning. But what if I was wrong? What if my judgment was too harsh? I jumped out of the car and took a few frames from a few different angles, happy for the new fingerless gloves I got for Christmas. Studying the picture on the large monitor of my computer back at home, I realized that it wasn’t sadness that drew me to the scene at all. It was gratitude and joy. The scene isn’t slick and beautiful; it’s all about feelings. For being with the people I love.
I’ve made it my intention to continue to seek and offer friendship as I grow older. This is how I came to meet Kate. I saw her photographs exhibited in a local art gallery and something in her work resonated deeply with me. One day, I ran into her at the gallery and took the time to tell her how much I admired her work. I felt an instant connection and followed up with an invitation for coffee and photo-talk. Fast forward a year and here we are, friends collaborating on a photography project. This is a sample of our ongoing project.
I take a photo and send it to Kate. She takes one in response. Back and forth we go, a conversation that grows a friendship. We began this correspondence in July 2020 and we’re 25 photos in, planning to make it to a full year.
The project has a working title, From Here to There, or maybe it should be From There to Here, depending on how you look at it. The project explores how change transpires through a sequence of ordinary moments. Appreciating the feeling of impermanence. And the beautiful possibility that there is a path from a bad place to a good place. Just because we cannot see the path doesn't mean it isn't there. Here is a fine starting place. I can’t wait to see where we end up.
To read the full story about how the project got started and where we’re headed, I’d love it if you would visit my post on ViewFinders today, A Year Between Friends.
