The temperatures are above -20C. I have a new/used zoom lens. You miss all the photos you don’t take. So, I walked around a couple blocks and took a few shots.
Hydrant by our house
City Hall
Closed Sorry Migraine
I love these two old buildings.
Encouraging words & Photographer
Encouragement is a great thing.
I’ve had a few experiences of encouragement lately.
A friend and colleague asked me to take some photos of him as promo pieces for his burgeoning music career.
Kind words were offered in response to some photos with text I offered for a Visio Divina project.
A photographer/Instagramer from the UK said very kind things about me and my work on his regular Friday video.
Not surprisingly, I can be my harshest critic and routinely think I’m a hack and should just stop. Too often I find it easy to dismiss people’s compliments because they are just family or they are just trying to be nice. It’s quite the act of dismissal not to believe the words they say are true.
Occasionally, there are cracks in my armor and I can actually receive and celebrate these encouraging words. And sometimes I believe them.
I added the label “Photographer” to my Instagram account today. Of course, I feel like an fraud doing that, but perhaps by seeing that word there I will learn to accept that label.
Never underestimate the value of a few words of encouragement.
Silence will speak
Photo Anxiety - Picturing Winkler
One of my many anxieties is worrying about if I’ll ever find something interesting to photograph again. This is dumb and annoying. It feels like the experience of staring at a blank page and thinking I’ll never find something to write or paint ever again. It’s actually less about finding something interesting to photograph than if I’ll be able to create an interesting photograph.
When I lived nature-filled woods of southern Michigan I was certain there were no more trees, branches, leaves for me to find any interest in.
Now that I live in the flat, bare, suburbia of Winkler I often sit inside certain that my surroundings have nothing to offer me and my camera.
At least the rural woods of Michigan had the advantage of not having any people around to notice me and my camera. In Winkler there are people everywhere, and they seem to like being outdoors. This means I also need to overcome the anxiety of people seeing me take pictures. Changing lenses and getting out my tripod so I can take a closeup of an interesting pattern in a sidewalk that people are using is just not something that I feel I can do. Photographer imposter syndrome is not unfamiliar to me.
And yet, sometimes I am able to tamp down some of those anxious voices, grit my teeth, and, with low expectations, head out with my camera.
No matter where I am, doing this has almost never let me down.
Here are a few such shots from my new (old) home of Winkler, Manitoba.
Empty now it's place
Since spending nearly 20 years working in preservation I have been very aware of the language about decay and the vulnerability of life in the Psalms. Some day I’d like to write something about that, but in the meantime we have this.