deep thinking

"We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone...Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them. On sights and sounds, on the mood of the weather and things remembered, on the machine and the countryside you're in, thinking about things at great leisure and length without being hurried and without feeling you're losing time." --Pirsig, from zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance."

I've been thinking a lot about photography lately. Sometimes my over-analytical mind can get the most of me, but recently I've been contemplating the merits of, well, thinking. While making pictures is an important part of the art, it's probably only 10% of the work. If I didn't read books, have conversations with other artists, journal, and pray I don't think my photography would be where it is now. I feel like so many photographers these days can be "snap-shot" photographers...shutter happy and relying too much on the post-production. What about the pre-production? What about using your mind? What about using your heart and letting that shape what you see?

It's a very circular, organic process. You find something beautiful- a dilapidated barn, a morning frost, a laughing roommate, an interesting reflection, a moment- and isolate it in time. You make a photograph. You make many photographs. Then you put the camera down for awhile and carry on life...broadening your horizons in the nitty-gritty realities...having good conversations, reading under a tree, eating with the family. You bring all these things to your photography and bring your photography to these things. Then you go back an edit your pictures later. It's a brutal process, like being naked in a room...you see all your flaws in your art and get frustrated that your vision didn't translate as beautifully, as transparently in your film. You think some more. You read some more, underlining texts and letting new thoughts enter. Letting them steep. Then you let inspiration guide you and you make more photograph. It's a circle. There aren't twelve easy steps, but many overlapping parts. That's why I say I'm a photographer even when I put my camera down.

Then again, I think there is a lot of fear in there...because maybe I don't pick up my camera enough. I'm not that girl who always totes her camera. I tried it for awhile...I can be that in spurts. But I get tired of it...because I need to go think. Maybe I'm too comfortable doing that.