Today is #WorldPhotographyDay and it trips me right out to look back on how far I’ve come with whatever this is since last year, when I wasn’t sure why people kept giving me cameras or what the hell I was supposed to do with them. I took photos, of course, but I wasn’t sure if it was “photography” — and I knew I wasn’t a photographer, that’s for damn sure. But I’m not as sure anymore.
Someone who gave me the best compliment I could have ever received* about this silly little hobby of mine posted something the other day about how hard it is for many of us to think of ourselves as worthy of recognition; how fragile we might be because our self-expression growing up was not always encouraged the way we’d have liked; how easily we might give up now that we’re older when one unkind word or two is given by people we might look up to. I felt those words deeply before their author felt the need to retract them; I understood that pang of remorse when I saw it happen too.
But the thing is, much of my deprogramming has been about learning to see things more clearly: to recognize the support I’ve always had and always will. Sometimes the naysaying voices are so loud in my head that it’s easy for me to miss out on what’s right there in front of me – right there beside me. Which is another reason why photography is so fun: I always notice things in the frame that I hadn’t really seen when I first took the shot.
But anyway, what I’m really trying to say is thank you @christine.bingham.art for being my best friend and biggest cheerleader.
* that compliment was based on these photos I took at the Mizmor show at Substation on 7.27.23.
here are a couple more shots from that night, in which I was coming to grips with my father’s mortality.
“An image resists explanation. You relate to it, or you do not. You cannot disagree with an image. Through identification with an image, you comprehend a totality, rather than learn particular facts.” (Laurence Galian)