Had I Known
Only seven years after I first started looking into Patreon, I finally set up my own account. It never seemed to make sense for me, given I have CPhMag.com (which is free). Plus, there's this Mailing List (which is also free). But free doesn't pay the bills, plus I finally had an idea for what I'm going to do. In a nutshell, CPhMag.com will remain what it is, as will this Mailing List. My Patreon will offer a mix of both: in-depth articles about photobooks (or photobook making) that include a lot of personal thinking or personal reactions to a book. I'll only work with my library (it doesn't make sense to me to review new books behind what effectively is a paywall), and I'll pick books that thrill me in whatever way and write about them. The first piece that has already been published focuses on Kikuji Kawada's The Map.
Meanwhile...
To continue my current theme of introspection, there's what I think of as "Had I known". I try not to have regrets for things I did in the past. This is not to say that I view my past uncritically (if you know me, you'll know that the exact opposite is the case). But it's one thing to view something very criticially, but quite another to regret it, to, in other words, keep thinking about it ("Had I only done this or that"). Instead of thinking about bad decisions made in the past, I try to actively incorporate what I learned into the only thing that I have a chance to change: anything that lies in the future, whether it has already begun in the present (or possibly even in the past) or not.
Had I known what I know now, I would have done a lot of things differently or not at all in the past. For example, I would have never bothered with film for so many years, essentially stifling my creative process at a huge cost (financial and otherwise). Instead, I would have bought a high-end digital camera right away. Again, I could spend a lot of time thinking about all the wasted time and money (not to mention that none of the various projects ever got anywhere because I neither had enough time nor money to fully work on them). But I try not to do that. Instead, I have been using my experience as a reminder of what needs to go into my pictures now. For example, when I'm close to tearing my hair out over the stupid work on the computer required by digital photography, I remember the many, many hours I spent spotting scans (and don't even let me go into trying to get access to high-quality scanners).
I suppose, what I'm talking about here is trying not to throw good money (mental energy) after bad (all the time wasted on film or whatever else there is). What I've found is that this is not only a more productive approach, I can also channel what otherwise would be futile frustration into the drive to make something new or something better. In photography, this approach seems to be especially productive: after all, doesn't it happen all the time that a photograph didn't quite come out the way one expected it to come out? But there always is another picture! The moment might be gone, but each failed attempt to take a good picture is a small opportunity to grow, to do better next time -- or, in Samuel Beckett's words, to "fail better."
Meanwhile...
I'm not a TV person at all (watching TV bores me). But the other day, I read about a four-part documentary about Berlin's Charité hospital dealing with Covid patients over the past winter. The description sounded very intriguing, so I decided to watch (it's only watchable in Germany, but I have a VPN...). Long story short, I've only been able to watch a single episode each day, because it's emotionally so devastating.
The documentary centers on a small number of people: ICU doctors, ICU nurses, a psychologist working at the hospital, and a small number of patients. It's all filmed really close up, but as a viewer you can feel a huge sense of respect for what's in front of the camera. There's no music, just the sounds, and everything happens relatively slowly. People walk around, doctors or nurses go about their business. At times, they talk to the camera about what's going on or what moves them. It's incredible.
There is plenty of drama, but much of it is constant. In one episode, a highly specialized ICU doctor inadvertantly injures a patient that he is hooking up to a machine. The patients heart stops, they need to bring him back, and the doctor talks about how deeply shaken he is, even though he also knows that this is part of the job: there always is some chance that something goes wrong.
One of the most heartbreaking scenes is of a senior ICU doctor talking to a patient's daughter about her mother (their at the mother's bedside). The mother had previously decided she didn't want treatment in the hospital. So the doctor talks her daughter through what they will do, the daughter's consent provided. They'll reduce the treatment, reduce oxygen back to normal air values... Then, the doctor leaves the room, and the daughter says goodbye to her mother. After she leaves, a more junior doctor comes in, gently touches the mother's hand (see screenshot), checks the machines... By that time, as a viewer you've become used to looking for the heartrate and heartbeat: a flat line, with a "0" next to it. He switches off all the machines and then goes to the windows to open them slightly. That's the first and only time this doctor speaks. He looks at the camera and says they always open the window, so that the soul can leave the room. The whole scene might have just taken five minutes. But as a viewer, it felt like an eternity, and it's completely devastating.
To imagine how many times these same scenes might have and are still playing out all over the world...
Meanwhile...
What else can I say after having described what I just watched?
Sometimes, there needs to be only silence.
As always thank you for reading!
-- Jörg