Notes on long-term projects

Wow, I love the posts by photographer Noah Waldek over on Substack. His post on March 18, 2025, Lessons on Long-Term Photo Projects, really hit home for me.

In my younger years, I was such a workhorse. Turning over projects like dominoes lined up for a chain reaction. I was often relentless about work. Even creative work. Seldom content to let things percolate or simply be what they were. Forcing things to be as I needed them to be. I don’t regret this version of myself, but I do feel a great deal of sympathy for her. That version of myself was unaware. She was driven by insecurity and fear. And still, this practice was one of her greatest teachers. What a gift!

Nowadays, I feel comfortable with not knowing where the work may lead. Not fully understanding what it means. And accepting that I may never know. The making of these pictures is enough. And long term projects are worth it. Worth the work. Worth the discomfort. Worth the wait.

My mother-in-law recently moved to an assisted living residence. She will soon be 93 and the decision was hers. She wisely told me, “We have to adapt as we age.” She has taken the move in stride and made her new home cozy and lovely.

I’ve been taking pictures of what was left behind—in her home of over 65 years. These are the things none of her children needed or wanted. Things she didn’t move with her to her new apartment. Most of it neatly sorted into collections of like objects by her youngest son. Kind of like a department store with home goods and linens and kitchen appliances and decorator items.

I expected to feel sad. After all, this was the house I came to for Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, Easters . . . over and over again for my entire married life, 44 years. I am not especially sentimental about things (though deeply so about pictures and stories and people). But many of the items, when striped bare of surrounding clutter, were incredibly moving. Where the small pieces, by way of some magic math, added up to more than the sum.

This part of Noah’s post spoke to me in that way a really good friend does when they say, I know what you mean.

In reference to Gregory Halpern’s work:

Speaking about giving his projects time to develop he said: “Usually I don’t like my pictures when I first see them.” “I like to sit with the work, show people, figure out what’s working and what’s not, and then return to making pictures with a more informed vision.”

Noah adds his take:

I think that idea of distance—whether it’s the physical distance from a place to help you appreciate it, or the distance time gives you if sit on your work for a while after you create it—can be really helpful in allowing you to see what you’ve made more clearly.

I am waiting to see where this work might lead.

Through A Lens Of Love

I’m working my way along a path to relief from chronic pain that relies heavily on the brain science of mind body connection. Now, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say! I’m a scientist at heart, trained as a physical therapist. So for me, pain has always meant addressing some biological, structural, or physiological issue. It’s only recently that I have come to understand that most chronic conditions originate from a dysregulated nervous system. It’s a whole thing . . . and you can read about it in the book, Mind Your Body by Nicole Sachs, if you’re interested.

Sharing an excerpt from Nicole’s book:

“Life can be experienced through one of two lenses: love or fear . . . When you look at your existence through the lens of fear, you anxiously need things to be a certain way, whether it’s in regard to yourself or others. You continually scan your world for problems, and when you find them—which you always will—you get stuck on what should be. Not only does living through the lens of fear require a ton of emotional repression (life is never exactly as you wish), but it creates resistance to the natural process of healing.

The lens of love, in contrast, is gentle. You acknowledge that life is constantly changing, and human beings are evolutionarily wired to ebb and flow. When you can learn to “wear life loosely” . . . you allow people and situations to be as they are—rather than how you’d have them to be. In this process, your nervous system no longer has to react so defensively to every stressful situation . . . Looking at life through a lens of love requires paying attention to how you talk to yourself.”

All of this work has been transformative for me. What I see most is just how much freer I am in my creative work. It feels risky to simply love the pictures I take. For years, I've been so critical of my work and struggled to find the value in each picture. And now, none of that seems important. What I feel now is a kind of radical acceptance and wonderful appreciation for just how much joy this hobby has given me.

What The Heart Wants

Many thanks to my dear friend Jan Falls for introducing me to this poem today. The poem made me think about what my own dear heart wants. A long hot shower with soap that smells like the forest; a soft bed and a good night’s sleep; my husband’s hand to hold; a slice of pie and two forks; a bike ride, a swing or a meandering photo walk; music on the radio. My heart is grateful with just enough.


They Say the Heart Wants

what it wants, but no one tells you what it gets.
So here’s a list, mine: tall grasses, blowing in the wind,

swirled glass cups, peacock blue, bought in Lebanon.
Fog off the California cliffs, dark boulders on the shore.

Billie Holiday’s I’ll be seeing you in all the old
familiar places, cycling through my auditory cortex.

Dogs pulling at the leash. Small white plates
of wild greens and beets. The time a man kissed

my hand when we met, then pressed my palm
to his cheek. Sei Shonagon’s eleventh-century list

of Things That Give One a Clean Feeling: an earthen cup,
a new metal bowl, a rush mat, the play of light on water

as one pours it into a vessel, a new wooden chest.

To which I add a drawer of beeswax candles,

steam rising from a pot of tea. So much stored
in the heart’s farthest chambers. And though

he’s been dead for decades now, I still feel the kiss.
My whole arm shivers with its half-life.

– by Danusha Laméris

Art Appreciation

Personal and creative growth sometimes come with a sudden flash of insight as though a light switch has flipped. But often growth comes in small waves like quiet awakenings in the middle of the night. You might simply roll over and go back to sleep or you might choose to get up and follow that impulse or thought.

Lately, I have felt this way. As though I’m being introduced to some part of myself that I have never met before. A part I did not know existed. I often hear the advice that old age is a time when we might return and find again the joyous child inside. We might actually give ourselves permission to have fun. And yet, I have found this exercise difficult. I do not easily recall a carefree childhood. And fun is not a word I would I would use to describe myself.

But when I study my creative work, that perception is challenged. There is evidence to the contrary. Perhaps I have been defining fun too narrowly. When I think of pleasure or relaxation or enjoyment, I always think of making or interacting with art in some form—cooking, music, movement, reading, watching, photography, hiking and walking in nature, handcrafts, and the like.

The more I study the photographs of others, the more I come to see the value of my own. I see through their eyes that I was indeed seeing something meaningful. It’s as though I need that reassurance to trust my own instincts, and while I wish that were not so, I treasure it still. Because now I can see for myself. I can stand back and take inventory of who I am, what I reflexively do, and how I might be instinctively tempted to side step discomfort. This self-knowledge helps me to avoid pitfalls (those stubborn forms of avoidance) and lay the ground work for success in my personal life and my creative life.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Edward Hopper Exhibit | Donna Hopkins, 2020

I came across a collection of moving photographs of people admiring art by way of Miss Moss, The Louvre and its Visitors.

“Brazilian photographer Alécio de Andrade lived in Paris for almost 40 years; working as a press reporter, Paris correspondent of the weekly Manchete and also as an associate member of Magnum Photos. But it was his photos of everyday life that had a certain magic element to them – beautifully capturing moments in the lives of couples, people, children, and animals. In 1992 he was awarded a grant to produce a photography book on the Louvre Museum, where he had been taking photos since 1964…

Photographer, but also poet, pianist and friend of writers and musicians around the world, Alécio de Andrade wandered the rooms of the Louvre Museum for nearly thirty-nine years, starting in 1964. From these walks, he left 12,000 photos. Each framing seems like a theatre scene in which we would be spectators over the artist’s shoulder and where the visitors would be the actors.” —Diana Moss

I have taken many photographs in this genre—museum visitors admiring art. I am fascinated by the quiet depth with which people experience art, how they find meaning, the emotions they feel, and what draws their eye. I find the connection between the viewer and the art to be as moving as the art itself, and oftentimes, even its own new creation. It feels good to be alive in this way.