passion project
a lost passion for photography, hopefully renewed
I can pinpoint the exact moment in time when my passion for photography died; it was at the same moment that whatever burned inside me, that propelled me to do creative things, left me. A long drop from a life lived in perpetual happiness and security to one of despair and uncertainty left me shattered. My depression and anxiety - both of which I was able to hold at bay for a time - came back strong. Financial insecurity, an alcoholic husband, the feeling that whatever grip I had on life had loosened all combined to cause me to retreat a bit, to fold into myself the way I used to before I found love and security with him.
When I first met him I had a Sony Mavica digital camera. It stored photos on a floppy disk, that’s how long ago that was. When he saw how much I loved photography, how I spent all day thinking up creative shoots, how I would get down in the grass to shoot a bug on a flower, he bought me a Nikon. It came with a learning curve and I immediately set out to know everything I needed to in order to take nice pictures. I bought books, I did a lot of online reading, I practiced and practiced, which was easy to do with a digital camera.
I was absolutely passionate about taking pictures. I saved up and bought a macro lens and a zoom lens. People got used to seeing me with my camera strapped across my body. I took it everywhere, I took pictures of everything. I posted all my photos on my flickr and joined groups where we took at least a single picture every day for a year. I would spend the mornings thinking about things to shoot and would rush home from work eager to get my 365 shot in. I had props and light box and a deep urge to be creative.
That passion carried me for at least seven years. That’s seven years of taking photos every day, of photographing people and places and objects. Every single morning I’d get up, go into the backyard, and take a picture for my “morning glory” set. We’d often go on long drives discover Long Island and landscape. We went to parks and beaches and arboretums and abandoned places. He indulged my need to photograph everything, and that kept my passion going.
When he started drinking again, a part of me withered up. I found myself coming home from work and wanting to just crawl into bed instead of doing a photoshoot. There were no more weekend excursions. There was no encouragement. I withdrew, stayed sad, my cameras gathering dust in the spare room. At times I missed going into the backyard and shooting the flowers in various stages of bloom. I missed pulling out my props and posing action figures to make whimsical photos. But I didn’t miss it enough to actually get off my ass and take some pictures. My passion was dying. Or, may ability to create passion within me died. I was depressed and somewhat angry and that does not bode well for creative pursuits.
Most of the things I was passionate about growing up were passive. Reading, listening to music, things I didn’t have to get off the couch for. Photography was the first hobby I had where it involved more than sitting down. It got me moving, it got me to see interesting places and more important, it got me to see the world around me through a different lens, so to speak. Looking at everything as a potential photograph made view everything in a different way. I looked deeper, harder, longer. Photography kept me in the present, in the here and now. Watching a snail crawl up a wall until I could get a perfect picture of it, seeing the beauty in the waves coming in on the beach, capturing the leaves changing by going out each day and taking different angles of the same tree, it all kept me hyper aware of my surroundings, alert to the world around me.
It’s been years since I even thought of taking the cameras out for a spin. I’m trying desperately to rekindle some sort of passion for something inside me, to feel something besides the emptiness that has engulfed me since he left. I want to take pictures. I want to get outside and move around and explore my world anew. But that first step, that getting off the couch, getting out of bed, getting out of my own head is a treacherous one; it means acknowledging that I have kind of wasted the past few years, it means reckoning with myself and pushing myself toward motivation. I’m not sure I know how to do that.
I bought a cleaning kit for the camera and lenses. I bought a new charger and some SD cards. I bought them when I had a little burst of energy after he got sober again and things seemed to be lifting up. They’ve been sitting on my dresser for a little over a year now, a reminder that when I was finally ready to be passionate about something again, he deflated me by leaving. I know it sounds like everything comes back to him, and that’s about 98% true. The rest is on me.
I’m somewhat healed now, somewhat over it, and I’ve got that itch to get out there and start shooting again. It would be nice to go on those discovery excursions with my daughter, or even by myself. It would be nice to be passionate about something again. For too long I’ve let someone else’s actions dictate my own. I’ve let someone else get in the way of me living my life. I’m pretty sure I’ve said in another issue of this very newsletter that I was ready to take the camera out again, but this time it’s not just self talk. I feel something stirring inside me; the desire to be passionate, the desire to be creative, the desire to say “fuck you” to everything and everyone who has stood in my way the past few years, including myself.
Watch this space.