Sifting Pans
More and more lately, I've been digging farther and farther. I'm a forty-niner in California, digging for gold. I dig and I sift and every once in awhile I'll find a nugget that I'll clean real well, polish off and take a look at, only to realize its no different then what’s sitting in my sifter. So I keep at it, I go buy better shovels and bigger sifting pans. I read books on different techniques, testimonials on the success stories. All the while, I find more nuggets and toss them back, knowing they aren't right. Oh I've found plenty of gold: basketball, the grocery business, hell even poker. They all could be gold if I wanted them to be. But I need the perfect piece. The piece I can live with the rest of my life.
My quest for a métier now personified, my latest nugget of gold is photography. A field so developed and swollen, I feel like I'm too late. I am chronically searching for the egg that hasn't been broken, some phenomenon that people haven't caught on to yet. But everywhere I look: omelets. So instead, I decided to look at the lifestyle I wanted, the kind of life I wanted to live, and then consider some nuggets of gold that can be applied to it. I want a life that has no bounds, and I don't mean wealth. Wealth is meaningless to me. I want to travel, to see, and expose what I've seen to others. Photography seemed like a logical choice, and so did writing. I've written for as long as I can remember about everything I can't remember, and I'll continue to do so. But I don't feel as though I'd like to make writing my only trade, not unless I got a taste for what that really means. I've always hated the idea of being forced to write about something I personally wasn't interested in. I don't want to force expression. Enter: photography.
It has been around me for quite some time, both my brother and I have almost always had some sort of crappy camera or another. Whether it be the huge purple colored brick with the grey strap, or our grandfathers SLR and telephoto. My mother was also quite the photographer, producing some impressive prints that should have brought more recognition. So this is not some outlandish pipe-dream I cooked up, it isn't hard to foresee me in this field. However, I wasn't quite prepared for how vast a field it can be.
Anybody can go buy a digital point and shoot, snap 150 photos of sunsets and their dog, and be a photographer. That’s all well and good, but its not for me. I am not content with being able to do something; I need to be able to do it well. I want to take pictures that tell stories, pictures that need no footnote. So now I'm doing what every fledgling photographer probably does, taking pictures of everything. The microwave, can of diet coke, the way a network cable is draped across the counter. Then I throw them into the dark room of the 21st century, Photoshop. If I was already humble, now I'm not worthy. Just the help file for the program is longer then most American classics. I have two books on the program, but they’re as arduous to read as a dictionary, constantly forcing me to see: this, and see: that. But where I was three years ago, I am not today. I no longer have to be ‘in the mood’ to do something, I can convince myself that is probably in my best interest, and to go do it. I read 150 pages of the fantastic bookBlink in one sitting today, not because I was passionately driven to, but because I knew I’d be happy when I finished it. I don’t have a false impression that I can ever be “finished” with photography, but I do know I can climb my way to the top of it’s staggering learning curve. Once I do that, I’ll be able to acclimatize and cruise freely. That is my pay dirt.
Then I'll put down my sifting pans, and write a testimonial on a success story of my own.
My quest for a métier now personified, my latest nugget of gold is photography. A field so developed and swollen, I feel like I'm too late. I am chronically searching for the egg that hasn't been broken, some phenomenon that people haven't caught on to yet. But everywhere I look: omelets. So instead, I decided to look at the lifestyle I wanted, the kind of life I wanted to live, and then consider some nuggets of gold that can be applied to it. I want a life that has no bounds, and I don't mean wealth. Wealth is meaningless to me. I want to travel, to see, and expose what I've seen to others. Photography seemed like a logical choice, and so did writing. I've written for as long as I can remember about everything I can't remember, and I'll continue to do so. But I don't feel as though I'd like to make writing my only trade, not unless I got a taste for what that really means. I've always hated the idea of being forced to write about something I personally wasn't interested in. I don't want to force expression. Enter: photography.
It has been around me for quite some time, both my brother and I have almost always had some sort of crappy camera or another. Whether it be the huge purple colored brick with the grey strap, or our grandfathers SLR and telephoto. My mother was also quite the photographer, producing some impressive prints that should have brought more recognition. So this is not some outlandish pipe-dream I cooked up, it isn't hard to foresee me in this field. However, I wasn't quite prepared for how vast a field it can be.
Anybody can go buy a digital point and shoot, snap 150 photos of sunsets and their dog, and be a photographer. That’s all well and good, but its not for me. I am not content with being able to do something; I need to be able to do it well. I want to take pictures that tell stories, pictures that need no footnote. So now I'm doing what every fledgling photographer probably does, taking pictures of everything. The microwave, can of diet coke, the way a network cable is draped across the counter. Then I throw them into the dark room of the 21st century, Photoshop. If I was already humble, now I'm not worthy. Just the help file for the program is longer then most American classics. I have two books on the program, but they’re as arduous to read as a dictionary, constantly forcing me to see: this, and see: that. But where I was three years ago, I am not today. I no longer have to be ‘in the mood’ to do something, I can convince myself that is probably in my best interest, and to go do it. I read 150 pages of the fantastic bookBlink in one sitting today, not because I was passionately driven to, but because I knew I’d be happy when I finished it. I don’t have a false impression that I can ever be “finished” with photography, but I do know I can climb my way to the top of it’s staggering learning curve. Once I do that, I’ll be able to acclimatize and cruise freely. That is my pay dirt.
Then I'll put down my sifting pans, and write a testimonial on a success story of my own.
Nathan Lotz at 2:08 AM
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