Olivia arrived home safely from Switzerland last week. She had an experience to last a life time. She speaks a new language and to her mothers keen eye she has changed slightly. Although she knows french now her new favorite word is damn. I find it funny.
As I write this I am in Sonoma. I am staying with son number 2, Michael, who lives with Ian’s sister. I am working on a wedding and I am visiting relatives. Last night we went to M A R Y S P I Z Z A S H A C K, my all time favorite pizza in the whole world, been eating it since I was 12 pizza. I took Mike, Ryon and Jaclyn to have a little birthday dinner for Ryon turning 24 this month. It feels odd to me to be visiting my children. Somewhere in my magical childlike mind I keep thinking they will be home again. Like life is a dress rehearsal and they will be back. I know it’s not true, but oddly enough it sometimes feels that way.
Being that this is a photography blog I know I am supposed to talk photography, at this point I don’t have anything new to bring to the table that hasn’t already been said by much greater photographers past and present than me, about photography. So writing what I know to be true for me, photographing what I know or what I am interested in feels honest. I can’t perpetrate a fraud without feeling like one. Writing what I know, photographing what I know feels honest. What I bring to the collective table of photography is my process, my translation, that is all.
I am in the middle of a process with my back. I started smoking when I was 10 and finally quit some years back. I learned how to deal with stress by putting stuff in my body for many years, now it’s just coffee and chocolate and I realize that stuff has to go too. It wasn’t until 11 years ago that I began practicing yoga and some meditaition. I am not very good at it either, but I learned through minimal work I could keep headaches and back aches and neck aches at bay. I come from this odd idea of thinking that if I worry enough about something that I have purchased an insurance policy against the bad thing from happening, also a childlike idea. But, for many years it worked. If I actively worried about the thing it would not happen. Well the worry makes my muscles tight and the tight muscles throw out my back and give me headaches. Once again, I find, I need to change the way I process if I want to feel more serene and relaxed. AND I DO!!!
A fear will bubble up and I will think about whether I have done foot work around it. Like I had a fear about photographing this wedding reception dinner in the gorgeous Benziger wine cave. Once I went there and actually saw what I was dealing with it was no longer a worry. I like foot work, it does help. On the other hand if I am all out of footwork and there is nothing left to do then trust in the universes and my creator is all that is left for me and is what is required of me, if I want to feel serene.
When I feel fear, worry or concern I move into action. What don’t I know? What is left to do? What do I need? Who would know this? E C E T E R A. Faith without works, for me, is dead. I have come to realise and hopefully accept that this is part of my process. Good or bad, for me, it just is.
Julie Cameron, the great artists midwife and author says that anger, fear, jealousy are all maps, road signs. If I feel angry, I must not go down that road again, where did I turn that caused that. Jealousy, well fine, I must work toward what I am jealous of, get it for myself then, use these negative feelings as indications of what it is I really want and need, and I do.
Photography isn’t going to solve the worlds problems and it doesn’t cure diseases, but for me, it gives me a job I love going to, I can work 18 hour days tirelessly because I am passionate about it. I have figured out a way to live on this earth doing what I love while I help support my family and that, for me, is huge. My process doing this is what I know. This is something I am willing to share.
I am on quit an adventure the next few weeks. I fly to New York to shoot an upper east side wedding in Manhattan. I lived in New York and went back for a few visits. I love it there and am comfortable there. This time I get to go with Ian and my assistant and I am so excited to be with him there. The couple we are shooting for has known each other since they were little. It’s a sweet story. I am in love with the process of photographing their story. It sounds sappy and I loath that, but I feel so very honored to be allowed into this circle of privacy to document these moments.
After New York we have one day home to recoup and head off into the wilderness to camp with our whole family . I am taking my cameras and will be documenting them, my favorite people in the entire world in my favorite place in the entire world. I can’t wait to see the images that will come from this. And for all of this I am grateful!
