A Personal Chronicle and Retrospective on Photography

For over twenty years, since my days in middle school, I’ve frequently had a camera in-hand. What started as exploration, turned into a hobby, turned into a supportive function for other projects, to a semi-professional service, then something I felt to be a form of art, and back. All throughout there’s been times of energy, learning, and growth, but also depletion, frustration, and dormancy. Much of the past year I’ve felt the latter trio of conditions, but at the end of 2023 I started to feel hints of energy. As is common when one year tips to the next, I’ve been in a retrospective mood and have been thinking about the cyclical seasonality of things. Here, I’ll attempt to condense some of the past seasons and pull out some lessons I’ve been able to gather. For myself, I hope I can remember this in order to soften the shifts in the peaks and valleys of motivation and fulfillment with photography – something that has been such a source of discovery and therapeutic expression for me at times – and for any readers, I offer this as an account you might consider with your own when feeling your way through the hobbies, passions, or art forms that are near and meaningful to you.

The Woods

I had entered the big leagues, or so it felt, starting the first day of sixth grade. I shed the child that I was the year prior in elementary school, and then emerged as, well, very much still a child. What had changed was the cast of characters, and amongst them was a fellow, nerdy kid, who I met soon on that first day and became fast-friends with just as soon after. We bonded over adventures in the untamed woodlands that stood in thick tracts between the houses and bordering farmlands of his rural neighborhood. We’d get lost – in terms of imagination, but also literally – in those woods for hours, on so many days, through the humid swelter of summers, the stabbing rain of afternoon gully-washers, through the crispening air and underfoot crunch of autumn, and beyond. The Woods seemed to always be calling, and we were loyal. At least during the times we weren’t busy playing Super Smash Brothers.

My friend had a small, digital, point-and-shoot camera that he brought along to document our intrepid times. We’d huddle around the small, back LCD screen and peek at the images: snapshots of nature, of us crossing creeks, or trying to look cool, or being absolute fools. I secured permission from my mom to borrow her camera, and my friend and I were then armed with a camera each. We’d complete a quest out into nature, race back to his house and plant ourselves in front of his computer where we’d slot in our SD cards and pour through the photos. I remember those experiences, so rich with layers of discovery; we’d fill our minds with exploration in the woods, then find whole new perspectives we managed to create on those memory cards. Our photos didn’t necessarily hail that we were prodigies of photography (although between the two of us you could tell who would eventually go on to become a professional photographer; spoilers, it wasn’t me), but we were thrilled.

Those days were foundational to me, offering what I consider to be some of the core experiences that affected me for years, and continue to do so. I learned that a camera provided a chance to reach into another layer of the world. I didn’t internalize it as art, or have any specific associations for what it really meant. All I knew at the time was that I had been introduced to the feeling of discovery, and it was intoxicating.

As the years progressed, our appetite for exploration took us out of the Woods and to the mountains. We both cycled to newer, better cameras – for me this was in part due to the fact that I had eventually thoroughly ruined my mom’s camera in a botched creek crossing – which revealed more possibilities, with more advanced camera controls that I had little concept of their effects. My friend and I moved apart, going to different colleges, meeting back up a few times to delve the mountain vistas. In those few times, despite being elsewhere, we were very much still the kids in the Woods, racing for discovery.

This chapter faded to a close as my interests as a college student wandered elsewhere, as often happens for a kid who has way more freedom than they should be trusted with. A camera remained a common companion, but was often used to document dorm room shenanigans and other vignettes of college life. It could be argued I was still facilitating discovery with my camera, but it wasn’t quite the same as the magic of the Woods; I wasn’t often in the mindset to be able to find those paths into that other layer of the world.

Must Photograph Dogs

The next chapter of photography that I can identify started after adopting an 8-week old border collie mutt. Adopting a dog was 8 years in the making; something that my partner, Kayla, and I had held off on for quite some time. When that day arrived, my camera – which had been going through a time of sparse use – very much came out of hibernation, and became dedicated to photographing every budding moment with our furry little baby girl, Aster.

At that point, I had a Canon Rebel with a few kit lenses. I had a poor sense of why I should be actively culling the images that I stacked from memory cards onto my hard drive; how could I possibly not keep every single one of the photographs of our experiences with this glorious creature? Although, we were convinced she was at least semi-feral; Aster even as a puppy had hackles that gave the illusion she shared a bloodline with hyenas, and teeth that had to have been bio-engineered for rending any material known to humankind (especially baseboards and ankles).

As many a new parent does, we created an Instagram profile for Aster, blasted the feeds with copious content of her cuteness, got looped into circles of other, overly-enthusiastic dog-parents, and made some pretty neat friends. Through that community and collaboration, I found a seed of a thought:

“Hey, I really enjoy photographing my dog, and others seem to enjoy these photos as well. What if I photographed other people’s dogs?”

Thus kicked off a journey of collabs, pro-bono events, and eventually landing some paid jobs as a freelance photographer who photographed dogs (and sometimes their humans). The company name I operated under, which I was supremely proud of my cleverness for, was Ready Aim Fur. During this I acquired a huge upgrade for my kit; I purchased and started using a Canon 5DmkIV. I poured myself into learning more of the hard skills of photography, the technical knowledge of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, editing, Photoshop, the works.  It paid off in leveling-up my abilities, and I felt like I wasn’t an acolyte any longer.

Beyond learning the technical finesse of photography, I also learned that photography could be a powerful communication method between people. When working with people, we were often able to shake off a lot of the stress and anxiety of them being photographed, being that I was primarily there to photograph their dog, not them. When the humans were photographed, it was in an experience they were all too comfortable with: their normal relationship with their dog; laughing, playing, goofing off. It was easy to capture the overt aspects of this, but the power of it resided in catching the more covert ones, the automatic, irresistible, irrefutable microcosms of nuance. These were the candid slivers of authenticity, when, as a photographer, everyone had forgotten that I was there, and in that camouflage I had a chance to observe the wells of meaning that were held between the dog and person. I have vivid memories of these moments, my eye socket pressed to the rubber eyepiece of the camera, observing fragments of life as if through a microscope.  

One of the best feelings was to share the back screen of the camera with them, to show them sometimes just a thousandth of a second stilled on the LCD, and watching their eyes widen, their mouth agape, bringing their hands around the camera and closing the already slim distance between their face and the screen, as if what the camera held now had more gravity than other nearby celestial bodies. It was these times that we both knew what it was I was communicating to them:

“I see you”

I internalized this as a continuance of the Woods, of all those times my friend and I had laughed or exclaimed wildly while huddled around the backs of our cameras.

This chapter came to a close because while there is joy in seeing the beauty of a relationship between a dog and their human, there is also sometimes a lot of grief. I had a repeat client whose dog had their lifespan become very uncertain due to cancer. I didn’t know this when we first met, but they later told me it was the reason they had wanted to hire me. After the last photoshoot we had, I remember crying while editing photos, and looking back through my favorite images from the previous session. After that session was delivered and complete, they contacted me again to ask for a final gathering that I’d photograph; their dog’s time was very short. I’ve thought about my decision to take that request, many times since. I ultimately declined, which felt cowardly and selfish, but I couldn’t bring myself to be in that space, to be someone that would truly see them. It was too much to observe that through the definition of a viewfinder.

I digitally shuttered Ready Aim Fur soon after that, feeling that, perhaps, being a photographer as a service wasn’t for me.

Landscapes LLC

While finishing my bachelor’s degree in environmental science I had worked as an environmental technician at a metals facility, which afterwards I had ricocheted from starting towards being a game warden, to working as a personal trainer for some years, then to my relatively short stint as Ready Aim Fur, leaving me with a big question mark as to what would come next. I felt I had built up momentum and a measure of internalized credibility as a photographer, and I didn’t want to lose that inertia. I wanted to continue exploring what I could professionally make of that path, but didn’t want to return to the sometimes delicate and emotional services I was providing before.

I remember finding a photographer’s videos on YouTube, where he would film himself wandering around the British countryside photographing the natural landscapes and providing commentary on his thought process. His name was (is; he’s still around, and still at it) Thomas Heaton. I started following his regular video uploads and became enthralled by the genre of landscape photography. There were two key aspects of it that seemed to align with my interests: one, that personal, human interaction wasn’t a key aspect, and, two, that it would promote me going outdoors (which the Woods had secured as an eternal interest). There was one hang up, though, and it was significant: if I was trying to pursue this in a professional manner, how was I going to make money?

I won’t build up any suspense and just get it out of the way now to explain that – while I discovered a lot during this chapter – I did not in fact end up making a living in the genre of landscape photography. I spent an abundance of time out in the mountains, forests, scrublands, and all manner of Pacific Northwestern habitats. I was out and about sometimes several times a week, getting up early and hiking miles to reach viewpoints before sunrise, or hiking miles back in the dark after sunset. I spent way too much time on social media, engaging with other photographers and nature enthusiasts, and trying to provide a steady stream of content for the algorithms.

One of the key lessons I learned during this chapter is that there can be many reasons that someone might think something is, or isn’t an art form. During my time as Ready Aim Fur, one aspect of my work that made it feel like an artistic expression was that the photographs weren’t something I was showing to the client to say, “see, it’s you”. They were an intention to communicate, “I see you”. The act of creativity included bringing my own filter and perspective to the world. When I became consumed in the genre of landscape photography, there was a particular aspect of this that I learned much more about: composition. At face value, composition meant picking the shapes, contours, textures, colors, and conditions that showed up in a frame, and in what proportions. But I learned that this could spur a deeper subtext between photographer and viewer, and that compelling compositions could give the viewer much more substrate to graft on their own associations, memories, and emotions.

The other key lesson I learned is that landscape photography isn’t ideal for relying on as quick-start source of income. I dabbled with various ways to monetize my efforts, such as selling prints, photo and video licensing, and even Patreon. I lacked the entrepreneurial savvy to make any of those avenues significantly successful in a meaningful amount of time (meaningful for my partner’s and my bank account), and this made me consider other options. Options that, gasp, would require me to interact with people. With my hesitancy towards once again providing person-interaction-heavy professional services being offset by the anxiety of a dwindling savings account, I tested the waters for a more generalized freelance approach to photography. This included doing a photoshoot and portraits for a personal training business, dipping a pinky toe into real estate photography, and getting a few bites for videography work. None of this seemed particularly promising, but a contract was looming just ahead that would be my big break, just not in the way I had imagined.

My brother – an archaeologist – had been working with the founder of a software company and a small team to develop custom applications for cultural resource management. My brother knew I was on the hunt for opportunities as a freelancer, and the founder was aware of some of my work. They needed video and photo content for their website, and to also use as marketing collateral for conferences. We ended up settling on a contract for a short video, which ended up being a fun project getting to work with my brother and recording video of him out in the forests around Mt Hood. I wasn’t extremely experienced, but the results were passable for the software company’s needs. This carried over to two more contracts and some photo licensing. A second video was filmed during a trip my partner and I took to Banff National Park, and a third, the most ambitious of the three, was filmed in neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon and also featured some of the more remote reaches of the semi-arid and desert environments of southeast Oregon. That video was a big learning experience, and kept me on my toes with a drone that malfunctioned out in desert, leading me to mimic the rest of the drone footage through hyperlapses and through – one of my cherished memories – strapping a tripod with a camera to the top of my Subaru Crosstrek and driving 80 mph across a desert playa. I’m pretty sure my insurance would have contested the claim if anything happened to my camera during that.

Throughout these interactions with the software company I got to know a good bit about their applications, their goals, and the team members. They were gearing up for a big initiative and needed more hands on deck. I was offered an opportunity to join on more than just an intermittent contract basis, which, after a long stint of having unstable income, was a very attractive offer. At the time I didn’t look at it as an end to being a freelancer, but that it would be a way to more calmly pursue side gigs as a freelancer, and would give me more freedom to do what I wanted with photography. The long story short of this is that, yes, it did give me the freedom to continue photography, but I effectively stopped any freelance or professional work as a photographer (or videographer) after that. My employment with the software company grew from handling some part-time social media needs, to providing support to customers, to general communications and data entry, to assisting in managing projects. It was rewarding working with the team, who were passionate and mission-driven, which hooked me into the cause as well, and made other opportunities for freelance a distant thought.

Photography reverted to being a non-professional activity – a hobby – which I felt, in some ways, at odds about. On one hand I saw this as an opportunity to pursue it perhaps more purely, as a passion rather than a profession. On the other hand I felt like I had fallen short, and notched a failure in my belt, for not “making it” as a photographer; because I wasn’t able to viably hold it as a profession, I felt I had lost some of that internalized credibility for holding the label of “photographer”.

This chapter slowly wound to a close over six or so years. In the beginning I continued, whenever possible, getting out into the PNW landscapes to photograph and practice the art. I continued spending way too much time on social media, and used that external validation to cling to the notion of credibility. I continued working with the software development company, through many of its own chapters, and, as of writing this, I continue to work as part of that team to this day. We’re still mission-driven and horizon-bound.

Grain is Good

In the years after joining the software company, photography remained an important staple in my life. However, it, and maybe I myself, went through several molting phases in search of something. Looking back, I think this was a search for ways to feel like I could still identify as a photographer. During this search I jumped between styles and techniques, often to the point of them becoming gimmicks. This may have provided some needful disruption, and helped me chicane my way through certain discoveries, but, given how chronically online I was at the time, it also pitted me in this feeling of being performative, a social media side-show, going through the motions for the sake of algorithms and engagement and lacking of any authenticity. What once was an outlet of therapeutic expression became a draining chore, and I felt a core piece of me start to become toxic.

It didn’t all feel like poison. One of the disruptive pivots happened after getting introduced to the works of Ben Horne, Alex Burke, Alan Brock, Nick Carver, Kyle McDougall, and Danny Thorn. The common thread amongst these photographers was that they prominently shot with film. I learned this after seeing examples of their work and being struck by certain qualities of the photographs. I was enamored with the way the colors seemed to be rendered and the tones of the highlights and shadows. Their work just stood apart from much of what I was accustomed to seeing on the social media feeds, and once I understood that this was, in part, due to their use of film, I started looking into the basics of these cameras and purchased an absolute bomb-proof workhorse of a camera: the Nikon F3. This set me off on a path of getting more and more indoctrinated in the #grainisgood cult. Film – which I had up until that point had figured as just an anachronistic novelty – became the needful disturbance to spark a new chapter in my relationship with photography. I ceased using my digital cameras entirely.

I had a great support structure in learning my way through some of the early growing pains of film photography. Danny Thorn fielded a number of DMs from me on Instagram, and offered a lot of insights on 35mm cameras and general tips and tricks. I also had the luxury of living within driving distance of the legendary camera store, Blue Moon Camera and Machine, which is a film camera mecca. The staff there were extremely giving of their time to give me a bit of “film photography 101” when I’d visit to have film developed, armed with questions and confusions. With some knowledge and practice I was able to take my Nikon F3 on a couple trips where I made a number of, to me, very successful photographs. After these repetitions, getting to know the process, and seeing the potential results, my interest in film photography was sealed.

It opened up the throttle on my enjoyment of the art. The relative slowness of film photography, in comparison to digital, and that film could be, at times, fairly unforgiving to novice mistakes, inherently required more intention to the practice. That focus seemed to heighten the sense of discovery that had marked my introduction to photography. The visible graininess of some film stocks – something that my previous digital inclinations would have reviled –  brought an additional enhancement. Because of these tiny, random imperfections the photographs felt more believable and relatable, perhaps feeling like a more tangible expression over the high-performing, clinically noiseless sensors of digital cameras. Or maybe I was just wooed by how hard those analog shutters slapped.

I learned that the pursuit of discovery is as much a desire to feel something as it is to know something. The tactile nature of film cameras, with their arrays of manual control dials, levers, rings, rails, and cocking mechanisms, invited me to feel – through the often elaborate choreography required for preparing and exposing a single photograph – like I was truly participating in the creation of something; the actions of the experience weren’t obfuscated behind clever, well-optimized user experiences of modern, digital technology. Even though they are clunky to deal with at times, they often felt like a superior tool for self-expression.

The renewed sense of discovery made me eager to know what other formats of film photography might provide in terms of experience, so I chased that question from 35mm to medium and large format. With the larger formats the requirement for focus increased, which in turn heightened the experience. Large format especially became a new world. The feeling of being under the dark cloth, peering through the ground glass, as if sat alone in a movie theater, was magic. Alex Burke’s blog posts, and also his willingness to share knowledge over DMs in Instagram, helped overcome the initial intimidation of working with a view camera. As someone who had worked in digital for most of their photography journey, large format for me felt like such an intentional process to create photographs. To me, its tactile tedium came off as charming. However, my desire to explore more difficult formats and to get more direct control of the process started to outrun my ability to produce the results I was looking for.

As I continued working with large format, I had a number of growing pains in not having good mastery of light metering. Since there was no on-camera light meter I was instead using a light metering app on my phone to gauge my exposures. This wasn’t very precise, and it overall felt like I was guessing at times how best to meter and expose for certain scenes. I ended up with enough non-optimal results that it was disheartening; large format is an expensive format to mess up on. I started having questions as well about whether there were improvements I could rescue from the scanning process, so I started investing in some bare bones equipment to scan my own film and see if I could take more control. Instead, this turned into a wild goose chase of scanning challenges, rookie mistakes, flip-flopping between camera formats, investing in even more equipment, and eventually feeling boxed into trying to make it work because I had already put so much time and money into it.

This chapter’s closure crept in as I found myself spending more time battling to just sort out the technical process – to be able to actually finish the loop of my efforts and see acceptable results – than I was actually practicing being creative with art. This led to a feedback loop of less time spent behind the camera, more frequency of mistakes, and less willingness to proceed. I felt like I was going backwards, no longer growing. I loved the act of using the cameras, exposing film, and how it made me feel more “in the moment”, but the whack-a-mole of doctoring and scanning results was a “git gud” skill wall that my enthusiasm had crashed to halt against.

Why? No, but Really, Why?

The next chapter is the one I’m in now (as of writing this). It started as I found myself wondering why, if at all, did I feel like I needed to continue these efforts. This wasn’t just an inquisition of my relationship with photography, but also social media. When I tried to answer the question of why I was only shooting film, my initial reason seemed to be that I adored the experience. But when I asked myself why that was, part of the honest answer was that it was something that could set me apart on social media and make me feel included in a somewhat novel community (even though the film community is by no means a small niche nowadays). And when I asked why that mattered, the answer was: it was something that I think I hoped would prop up a sense of credibility of still being a photographer; by using more esoteric cameras and processes it would validate that identity. It wasn’t the whole reason, it was true that there were intrinsic reasons why the experience of shooting film was meaningful to me; it sparked that sense of discovery in a way that had started to fall flat previously with digital. But the honesty that I was going through all this effort and frustration for the extrinsic validation from the metaverse, it pretty well snuffed out the flickering flame of ambition.

I ended up deleting all social media off my phone, and stopped practicing photography of any kind. I didn’t really know what I’d do next, and didn’t really care to figure out a plan. All I knew is that I needed to take a big step back from photography for a while. It had originally been such a therapeutic emotional outlet (and inlet) for me, and I didn’t want it corrupted by the rote droll of social media or my poor assumptions of how to foster it.

I busied myself with other pursuits, but slowly, organically had the thoughts filter back in on how I might be able to step back into a pure space of using a camera as a vehicle for discovery. The original “why” was still there; through a viewfinder I could pay attention to the nuances of the world, discover truths about the world and myself, and feel the intoxicating pulse of creativity. But how would I get back to that “why”? I recognized some aspects I wanted to resume, and others that I didn’t. I wanted my photographs to be able to have the look of film, for me to be able to feel focused in the moment while out on location, and to be in control end-to-end of the process for getting results without having to bleed money into supplies, more gear, or services. I found an answer through, gasp! , social media.

I hadn’t reinstalled any apps on my phone, and I certainly wasn’t feeling ready to peer back into Instagram, but on my computer I here and there had started catching back up with some of my favorite creators’ YouTube videos. I found a video by Kyle McDougall on “A Film Experience with Digital” which sang to me. In it he covered his experience using the Fujifilm X-Pro 3 and his review of how it stacked up for someone accustomed to shooting film. His line, “...it honestly brought back this shooting experience…[and encouraged me] to just experiment, be curious, and have fun”, was a sales pitch well-aligned with what I was searching for. After a bit more research, I decided to take the plunge and traded in some of my camera gear to get an X-Pro 3 along with a 27mm pancake lens.

It’s been two months with the X-Pro 3 and – while no camera is perfect, nor will it in of itself solve all my challenges with the “feels” of photography – has been a pretty solid home run in terms of checking the boxes of how I was looking to resume photography.  It allows me to emulate film directly in-camera, allowing me to create “in the moment”, and giving me full control of the results without having to back-load labor-intensive processes. Kayla and I have gone on a few small trips which I’ve brought the X-Pro 3 along to, and I’ve been pleased with the results – one photograph so far I consider portfolio-worthy.

It remains to be seen how the rest of this chapter plays out, but so far I feel like I’m back in that more pure space of discovery and creativity. I still haven’t been able to bring myself to post anything on social media; the most I’ve done is text some photos to friends. For now I’m happy creating for myself, and getting back into the practice of photography (and, with this blog post, writing again).

What I’ve learned so far in this chapter is: when the emotions of art start to dull, it can be helpful to challenge my thoughts by asking “why”, then keep asking until I can find the honest origin of what might be hampering my connection. Part of my own inquisition led me to let go of trying to preserve an identity as a photographer. I think now that it was a pursuit fueled by insecurity, trying to prop up a sense of credibility that I had felt I lost when not “making it” as a professional photographer.

In Conclusion

I’ll wrap this up by sharing something I wrote a couple years ago:

I've had a lot of different interests over the years, many were fleeting, but some grew into hobbies, few into passions, or even fewer that became vehicles of discovery; deeply important and meaningful to me. But even then, I have seen an ebb and flow to their presence in my life, and to my ability to consistently keep them with me. It almost seems impossible, when the realization hits me that I haven't dedicated time to something in days...weeks...months...years? How could that be? When I know that there was a time when that something was a daily practice, and every time I've thought of it since I long to bring it back into my life.

That contrast, of spending so much time with something I feel passionate about, and to draw meaning from that, then to have it sneak imperceptibly little by little into the shadows cast by life's oscillations... I've felt guilty in those moments when realizing that I lost track. And then I resolve to commit more time, energy, and soul to rescuing that passion, only to realize a while later that some other great interest fell out of focus and slipped away. After seeing this happen many times in my life, I believe that guilt is an inefficient response. It's true that sometimes I actively fail to remain disciplined in something, but that's not really the case with these passions that have been with me for, in some cases, twenty years. These passions have evolved over long periods, and despite having fallen away from me multiple times, they've always come back in new and wonderful ways. I see it now as a kind of seasonality, of bloom, growth, and rest. Rest, not failure.

I think the right response is acceptance, pride, and hope. Accept that I am spent. Have pride that I burned bright; I learned and discovered much. Feel hope for the return. When the season of one passion ends, another begins. When the seasons come back around I will not be the same person. I will be changed, and with new eyes and spirit I'll be able to reach new discoveries. Rest is an authentic requirement for all this to continue.

Those sentiments have been on my mind while working through this writing. I’ve identified a number of chapters for my journey with photography, and each having highs and lows, but all having lessons that led into the next, or informed me later on. I’m not sure how this current chapter will play out, but I know that I’m glad to have had the opportunity for many seasons of both growth and rest. I’m sure my views will continue to change, and I’ll reverse or abandon certain aspects of art for new experiments, but I won’t be worried as long as I can keep focused on the north star of “why” season to season.