one year ago

this time a year ago i was in oaxaca at a photography ‘workshop’. i felt out of my league (compared to my fellow travellers) with regards to knowledge and skill. but that is kinda why i was there – to hang out with people who knew more than me and learn something.

i haven’t looked at my photographs since then. i was disappointed with my efforts as a whole. i felt clumsy, overwhelmed, and like the camera i was holding was a stranger.

i was uncomfortable making portraits and it shows in my images (well, i think it does). i chopped people off at the knees, didn’t take time to get the shot i could see in my head, i was often not confident enough to even ask people if i could have a photograph. my photos are blurry, terribly composed, very often with no hint of the story i was trying to portray.

i made some really great friends on that trip. really great. but i made some really terrible photographs.

i very often wonder why i bother making photographs… when there are so many people on this earth with more skill, more knowledge, more vision than i feel i will ever possess.

then i think about the way it has helped me slow down and notice things, even when i don’t have a camera in my hand, and i remember – it is teaching me new ways of seeing.

If we wont be better tomorrow than we are today, then what do we need tomorrow for?
– Rabbi Nahman