Photography Is Forever.
There’s no crying in baseball and no retiring in photography…
I saw this tweet via someone quote-tweeting it a few years ago and screenshotted it instantly.
It hit something inside of me.
It had also been on my mind for eight or nine years.
It’s just the cold, blunt truth that there is no retiring from photography. You may retire from the profession of making photographs for money to earn a living, but you don’t retire from the craft.
I started to say camera, but that gets into the ongoing academic discussion of “what is photography?” which I try to avoid because I admittedly have a somewhat dogmatic view of what “photography” is, which mirrors my photographic practice.
I also think about all the other interests that have come and gone in my life; the only two that have stayed are skateboarding and photography.
I know I won’t be skating until I’m in my seventies; I don’t know about making it past 50 because of the physical stress it can put on your body.
Conversely, photography can be as physical as you want it to be. Do you want to build sets in a studio or hike and backpack in the wilderness?
Hauling gear across the country in an airplane or car, or are you walking the streets of your city?
The suffering Noah is referring to is your creative vision, how you constantly chase those images you see in your mind.
And as you grow more proficient in your craft, those images in your mind change, so you’re never satisfied with your work.
You’re only satisfied in the moment, that moment when you finish a series, make that final print, get that book printed.
That satisfaction is fleeting because your mind is planting seeds for that next challenge:
There’s always that next show
That next book
That next body of work
That next trip
That next something.
The truth is, you welcome that challenge.
Or at least that’s what I tell myself.
Because there’s that feeling, that thought in the back of your mind;
What if I run out of ideas?
What if one day I don’t have anything else to say?
The thought of that day coming terrifies me!
But then I instantly think of the upside: Lee Friedlander.
You can substitute your favorite older photographer here, but I’m going with Lee.
Why?
One, his work showed a directionless 28-year-old photographer that there was another way to do this photography thing.
Until then, I was still clinging to a dream that I wanted to be a photojournalist.
A dream I was no closer to achieving than when I first dreamt it at 17.
I didn’t realize it then, but he gave me a path to follow.
He was my true north.
Self Portraits
This photo book started it for me. I was already doing the shadowy-on-the-ground-self-portrait kind of thing, and I was pretty naive to think that I was being original (because no idea is truly original; we work at finding new ways to put our spin on it).
Two, Friedlander is turning 90 this year.
Looking throughout his history, he’s lived a life of photography, and from reading recent articles on him, he has no plans of slowing down.
I bet if you talked to him, you’d find that he’s still chasing that next image, putting together that next book or exhibition, that next whatever.
So that’s why whenever I get scared, I think of Lee.
I dream of living a life of photography like he has.
I dream that could be me one day (minus the Guggenheims, the MacArthur, the solo exhibitions, etc.), of course.
Some of those accolades might happen for me, but maybe not.
If anything, it’ll be fun; if I do it right, tons of photographs will be left behind.
Maybe that’s the secret to a long life.
Until next time,
Laidric
Also, you can find me here: