“Each time I understood a poem better, I made some decision in my own life that I understood better than before—because poems showed me unvarnished states of human emotion that I could examine. And after many decades, I realized that art was the healthiest part of my life, and if I could make mature decisions in life the way I made them in art, with the concentration, focus, and balanced energy of poetry, then I would be leading a life I admired.”
—Molly Peacock, How to Read a Poem and Start a Poetry Circle

One Heart

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings
was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

—Li-Young Lee, from Book of My Nights

Film mailed to the lab. Waiting now for scans and all that will be revealed. In the meantime, I’m taking digital pictures with pops of color. Continuing to practice with the Sigma 35 1.4 lens. Just discovered that tiny vintage leather purses make excellent cases for carrying point-and-shoot film cameras, a card and keys. These little things make me genuinely happy.

 

My work flow for editing pictures goes something like this:

  1. Download images onto computer.

  2. Promise myself that I will look the images over casually and then step away. Distance myself from the work.

  3. Ignore promise to myself and try processing “just one picture.”

  4. Work deeply and steadily for over an hour trying to make pictures conform to some idea I have of how they are “supposed” to look.

  5. Feel frustrated. Shut down computer. Go to bed.

  6. Fall asleep dreaming of pictures.

  7. Wake up and try again.

  8. After a full night’s sleep and a good breakfast, all of the crappy pictures now look beautiful. What was I thinking last night?

  9. Return to file folder many times over a period of weeks (and sometimes months and years later) and find treasure in what I could not see at first glance.

  10. The whole of editing is seeing possibility. And maybe letting go of expectations.

Both of these pictures were taken with a point-and-shoot camera, the Yashica T4 and Kodak portra film.