Mid-morning Snack

One Picture/One Paragraph

Entering our home is a joyful experience, especially if we have been away, for a few days or even a few hours. I love the way our home smells, the thoughtful arrangement of things of beauty and function, the soft light from windows without curtains, the little clues to who we are and how we live and love. It is a safe space filled with years of memories. On this day, we had been grocery shopping and stepping over the threshold I stopped to breathe deeply, in and out, soaking in the warmth of this familiar place. Left on the counter, a chunk of banana meant to go along on our errands, left behind, forgotten, a still life scene in the midst of a not-so-still life. That banana made me smile, sitting there resolutely, casting a shadow, demanding attention, before groceries could be put away. My husband laughed at my exclamation, “This looks like an art installation in a museum! I’m going to get my camera.” I refuse to frame my way of seeing the world as corny or clichéd. There is nothing more beautiful than sincerity.

I’m reading “Write For Your Life” by Anna Quindlen. I like her perspective on revisions and rewriting in which the true shape of the work emerges. Anna is honest in saying that she’d rather do anything than revise her work. But she knows . . . work that has been edited and then revised is most often better than work that has not.

I love this part.

“But the problem for students, particularly students who are used to doing well, is that having a paper handed back for another go-round implies not a desire for improvement but a verdict of failure. There is something wrong. The problem for the teacher is that that’s not necessarily what she is saying. Looking at an essay is different from grading an algebra test. Either the numbers are correct or they are not. With an essay it’s sometimes like seeing a photograph that is slightly out of focus. The picture is compelling if only it were sharper.” —Anna Quindlen

With revision, there is the promise of something better, maybe even something really good.

I feel this way about photography, too. It’s often difficult to accept constructive criticism about my work, but there is no question my work is better for the input. It’s challenging to live with a project, moving photographs in and out and around. Editing and processing, over and over again with small changes and tweaks. Setting work aside. Embracing a body of work—loving it and unloving it depending on where you are in the process.

It was the church at the Westmoreland County line that I stopped to photograph. It’s rare to find a simple church these days. One with the essentials of space and places to sit and listen and learn and nothing more. Crossing the highway, what really caught my eye were the crossed wires, pulling at odds, to create tension and stability.

These pictures are the story of my life. Small, unremarkable, read perhaps by only me, but I will not let judgment prevent me from telling. The process is invaluable.

Pops of bright color
belie winter gray
till the flowers come.

practicing with film, Olympus om-1 and Kodak portra 400 . . .

 

Still Life with Chamomile Flowers and Kiwi

One Picture/One Paragraph

Every day I move my body. I stretch, roll, bend, twist, squat, lift, balance. I practice lengthening for posture to make space between vertebrae. I do breath work to strengthen the tiny weakened muscles along my spine (hello, mulitifidus). I do all of this to maintain mobility. Sometimes the movement feels like joy—fluid and rhythmic and easeful. But sometimes it’s hard to move when I am stiff, out-of-practice, unmotivated. In my sixties, exercise is more about mobility than performance. I’m not training for a 10K or participating in a plank challenge or trying to do a pull-up. What I am trying to do is to keep moving. To maintain function so that I can continue to create. Sometimes my photography practice is similar to my movement practice. I place a few simple objects on a table and set the camera on the tripod. I practice with the digital camera to get a sense of things, and then try both the 35mm film camera and the medium format film camera. Nothing is perfect. Not the light. Not the styling of the scene. And yet, I practice anyway. What I am trying to do is keep moving forward.