On any given day, I shoot a pretty fair amount of photographs.
I don’t really wake up and say, “I am going to shoot a crap-ton of photos today.” But as the hours filter by, I find that I have reached for a camera…. any camera…. on numerous occasions.
Most of the things I photograph, are inconsequential to most people. But for some reason, those “things” have caught my eye, caught my interest, or caught my tiger by the toe. So I capture it right back.
Maybe it is genetic, this “photo-taking” thing. My Mom was a Camera Bug. I am not sure how many photo albums she has compiled in her lifetime, but it is close to 100. All labeled, all sequential… with little tags on the photos telling who it is, or what they were doing.
Oh. Bet me. I hated this when I was a kid. I’ve talked about it here before. But we were on the receiving end of the camera lens… every time we passed gas, went bowling, or got muddy. If we were really sick, or had just won the big game… we were forever emblazoned on the pages of those albums. But. That was then.
And this… this is now. I don’t create albums. In fact, I am pretty messy when it comes to keeping track of my digital stockpile of images. I have tens, and tens of thousands. All saved to nameless hard drives, all stacked together in a banker’s box in my office. I guess it is my version of hoarding…. in a cardboard container.
On this day, I started shooting at sun up. I went to feed the chickens, and the morning sky was something out of Oklahoma! I could almost feel the wind… a-sweepin’ down the plains. So I pulled out my iPhone and shot the sky. Ten minutes later, I was taking a photo of the chickens as they ate.
An hour passed and I was grabbing a screen shot from my phone. Time Warner Cable had called from Afghanistan. Yes. The South-Central-Portion-Of-Asian Afghanistan. Hell, we can’t get Time Warner Cable down here in Camden, but they are alive and well in Afghanistan. At least their Telemarketing Department is. Go figure.
But back to it. Polly and the Click. I don’t know what drives me to do it, but I find myself reaching for a camera. A lot.
Truthfully, I think most of us do some of the things we do, without knowing the why of it. I was going to compare it to a creative preference. As in, some people have interests in gourmet cooking, or painting, needlepoint, knitting, pottery, and on.
But really I think it is more like a bad habit for me. Like biting nails, binge eating, smoking, cracking knuckles, comfort shopping, or chewing on pencils. The old camera crutch.
Or it could be a little bit of both. Either way…. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. Unless things stop catching my interest and my eye. … … or I end up in camera rehab.
Again… Either way…. I really hope that NEVER happens.
“The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion . . . open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”
― Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red