In Finding a Subject: Discovering the Street, I talked about how I now considered myself to be primarily a street photographer. I learned about this love I had of doing candid photography of bustling cities after spending years photographing natural subjects in quite places all alone. However, the pandemic has caused many disruptions to my life and my work. I haven’t taken any street photos since I published that article early in 2020. I had no idea back in January that writing that article would signal a year long hiatus from street photography. I thought that the Finding a Subject series was largely finished, since I didn’t expect to have any major changes to my photography for a while. I was clearly wrong, though. Being more isolated, and unable to reach any of my usual spots for street work, has naturally caused me to fill my time with different types of photography and projects. I started to venture outside and return to how I started with a camera, by photographing nature.
A few years have passed since nature photography was more than just something I occasionally did in passing. It was only for those times when a subject would present itself to me, rather than going out in search of it. I lost interest in these types of photographs over time. Perhaps I considered it ‘too easy’, and was looking for something more challenging. Or maybe it was a sense that I had ‘completed’ my exploration of nature through the lens of photography, and had taken all the photos I could. I’ve recently realized that any explanation I might have told myself was likely wrong. Instead, the truth is that I wasn’t looking closely enough at the world around me anymore. I wasn’t focusing on photographing my environment through my own eyes, but instead I focused on what I thought would make compelling photos from other people’s perspectives. I wasn’t really seeing the world around myself.
It was easy for me to overlook where I was, to think to myself ‘I need to be somewhere else to take meaningful pictures’. It was harder to get back to basics. To try and feel like I did when I first started taking pictures, without any more thought than finding the subject slightly interesting, for any reason. Shooting without inhibition, and without thinking to myself ‘would anybody else like this?’ It’s not always a bad thing, of course, all photographers hope, at some level, to take pictures that other people will enjoy. There is something to appreciate, however, in taking photographs purely for yourself. Introspection elevates photographs into something beyond what’s in frame. Their meaning doesn’t always have to be obvious to anyone other than the photographer. Photographers are allowed to be selfish with their creations.
This past year has given me much more time for introspection. An effect I’m sure many others have also experienced. I’ve never had more free time, but also never felt so aimless. I spent much of my time walking around, exploring, looking for something new. I did a lot of hiking. While some were far away, most of my explorations were within a few miles of where I live, typically within walking distance. I even discovered some trails I never knew were there just minutes from where I had been spending most of my time for years, completely unaware of their existence. The aimless walks eventually became the purpose I was looking for. Taking the time to look around made the difference.
Time, and the seasonal change which highlights its passing, became a key focus of mine. Typically, I have an erratic work schedule that causes me to miss entire months and seasons, while having nearly unlimited free time in others. This year I had the first chance since early childhood to actually experience an entire year of my life, uninterrupted. I could, and often did, return to the same patch of forest over many months just to examine what effects time’s passing has caused. Deep within us is a desire to be surrounded by the natural world. Many of us just don’t realize it and aren’t given the time to learn about that part of ourselves. Nature has an intrinsic value to our lives, it gives us peace of mind.
The act of creating these types of photos feels far more significant to me than any considerations I have towards the final product. Heading out into the woods on an early fall morning, with nothing but my camera and a lens or two, spending hours looking around for nothing in particular, not even caring if I returned with a mostly empty SD card, is enjoyable all by itself. Compared to working in the fast paced environment that accompanies my street photography, nature photography gives me all the time I need to let my mind stray, and also to focus on what’s in frame. Staring into the forest and trying to look for compositions can cause a sort of photographic blindness. The random forms of the trees, shadows, and rocks create layers upon layers of shapes and colors that distract your mind while you search for the clarity needed to take a compelling photograph. Sometimes you just have to look closer to find what you are looking for. At smaller scales the order of the forest becomes clear. The minuscule and most interesting details of the world jump out once you let your mind rest, and begin to see.
By themselves these photographs are simply images of rocks, dirt, the occasional tree, but when I view them I see my world and what I was thinking about when I took it, on one of those long aimless walks in the woods. They are my memories and my observations; my thoughts. Their meaning doesn’t necessarily reveal itself within the frame, more context might be needed. Perhaps they might as well have no meaning. They are simply what I felt like I should photograph. I couldn’t even say the pictures I choose for this article are even my favorites, because I don’t think I made any favorites to select. It reminds me of when I first started, I felt back then that I didn’t do photography because I enjoyed it, but instead because it felt like I had to do it. Despite the uncertainty this year caused, I have strangely never felt more at peace. It might be because, at least right now, my future is so far out of my control there isn’t any sense worrying about it. Instead, it feels best to live one day at time and enjoy the things I’ve been missing in life, and create whatever I want. I’ll keep exploring the forest around me.
Firefly Fields - a film I made during the summer of 2020 about a small patch of forest I spent much of my time in during the pandemic.