PixelatedImage Blog

This has been a really fun couple of weeks. The response to the most recent blog posts about living fully and without regret has re-kindled a fire in me, and I’m grateful to you for being as open as you’ve been. I’m excited to be looking forward at a year of adventure and new stories. And really, it’s already started.

I took Jessie into the shop to get some regular maintenance things done (she is a 17-year old truck, after all), as well as better headlights and spare tire, tow hooks, and some other things that make mechanics geek-out. She’ll be in and out of a couple shops between now and when I leave on February 28th, and by the time she’s done she’ll be a different looking truck, complete with a rooftop tent.

In the meantime I’m planning and dreaming and making long lists of the people who’ve so graciously offered hospitality. And I’m trying hard to get ready for New Zealand, for which those that know me well will be shocked to know I’ve only just started packing now. I leave on Sunday which allows more time than most sane people take, but for me this constitutes a rushed, last-minute packing. (I wrote this on Friday, Nov.26 to publish on Monday, so by the time you read this, I’ll be there. Or I’ll still be losing my mind on a long-haul flight.)

I’ll be in New Zealand for three weeks, come home roughly on the 20 December, and have a couple days at home before flying to Jamaica to learn some underwater photography and join my parents for Christmas. I intend to post the odd postcard from the New Zealand, but as with any journey involving The Legendary H, you just never know how things are going to go and where we’ll end up! Stay tuned. I’ll post images and updates as I can.

PS – Not likely that the desktop wallpaper is going to happen on time, but I’m hoping I can post one within a few days of my being in New Zealand. Fingers crossed. I haven’t forgotten, just a little pressed on time with all that’s happening.
PPS – I’m here now, about to have my first cup of morning coffee after a night in the RV and prepping for our first real day on the road. Cheers!

Vision Driven Photography is something I believe in more and more. The idea that we wield in our hands, with our cameras, powerful means of expression for the things we think and feel about the world around us, implies that being more aware of those thoughts and feelings – our vision or intent – will result in stronger photographs. Combined with a growing ability in our craft, our images can become echoes of the things we most want to express in our photography. So this is one last crack at discussing vision, why we need it, and most importantly, some steps we can take to become more aware of that vision, especially when we’re new at this, or when we begin to feel we’ve lost sight of that vision.

The Vision Driven Photographer is a mix of my usual teaching style, combined with a collection of exercises to help uncover or re-discover our vision, first personally, then photographically. It’s also another crack at urging the geek in all of us to reconsider how pragmatic vision really is. This is not academic navel-gazing, it’s the identification of the things we want to say so we’re better able when we pick up the tools of our expression – our cameras – to bring all our craft to bear and create photographs that move others, but most importantly say what we want to say.

After this one I’m giving my focus on the role of vision/intent a break for a while, and beginning to move on to the goal of this all – expression. Specifically, I want to begin teaching about the grammar of the photograph, the visual language that is the means by which we communicate our intent. But this is one last kick at the can because the recent months have found me wrestling with these same things, and if I’m still wrestling with them after 25 years, I know many of you are still looking, still refining, still discovering.

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Last week I wrote a post about wringing the most from life, and like most of what I write it comes from stuff I’ve got bouncing around in my own head, wrestling with the angels and all that. I invited you to contribute your own thoughts, and many of you did. I’m still inspired by those comments. As for me,  I can’t get Jessie, and our plans together, out of my mind.

This is a long post. I hope you’ll bear with me.

I am changing my life. For the last year I’ve been in a state of massive transition and stress. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been an incredible year for all kinds of reasons, but it’s been juggling more balls than I’ve even had to do in my life. And somewhere in there, amidst personal failures, some amazing travel, the unexpected success of a couple more books and the incredible reception of my eBooks, I just kind of stalled. I lost my vision – not photographically but personally. I stagnated. Started drifting.

I’ve always been a dreamer, always had to have something to aim at on the horizon and the last couple years I lost that. In the face of so much unexpected success – for which I am so grateful – I found myself getting bored. Restless. I know, cry me a river, right? But they say that boredom is the lack of a lack, and recently the lack of something to strive for has become very apparent, sitting in my soul like a lump of undigested funk. It’s not at all a complaint, just the discovery about something in me – a need to move forward that is stronger than I ever knew.

In January 2010 I was on my way to a breakdown. It came for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which was a failure to find balance and take care of myself.  The breakdown, such as it was, happened at the worst of times, in a hut in Senegal not far from the border with The Gambia and I remember saying to my friend and producer, Gary, that I wanted nothing more than to throw my stuff into a truck and travel. As I write this Gary and I just finished another week together, this time in rural Bosnia-Herzegovina for World Vision. We spent several evenings talking about these plans over homemade slivovitz.

So I want to introduce you to Jessie. See the photograph above? She’s the one in blue. Jessie is a 1993 Land Rover Defender. In late February Jessie and I are leaving for a while, setting out on an adventure. I’m selling some of my stuff, putting the rest in storage, packing my cameras into Peli-cases and throwing my laptop, sleeping bag and tripods in the back, and we’re embarking on an adventure. I turn 40 this coming year, December 24, 2011, and before I do that I want to spend a year doing something that scares me, something that simplifies my life, something that forces me to breathe deeply and open my eyes. See what watching Dead Poet’s Society one too many times will do to you? The fact that I am turning 40 isn’t relevant, but it’s convenient.

The plan, so far, is a loose one. I’ll head south down the coast towards San Francisco, then inland across the Sierras, through Death Valley and towards Zion and from there towards the Gulf of Mexico, which Jessie and I will hug as we drive east, eventually stopping in Atlanta. I’ve got workshops in Italy and Croatia in April and May so I’ll park Jessie for a month while I do that, then I’ll come back and head south again to the Florida Keys. After soaking up some sunshine and doing some fishing and underwater photography, I’ll head north, with a brief stop back in NY to fly to Norway for a week. Then across the border and east to Newfoundland, the Canadian Maritime provinces and eventually I’ll point Jessie towards sunset and head clear across Canada before hitting Vancouver. No idea when that might be.  I’ve also got a few chances to give Jessie a break while I fly off to do workshops here and there. All I know is I need to be in Ushuaia, on the tip of  Argentina, to catch a boat to Antarctica in December. Then we’ll see. Drive south again? Head to Alaska? Ship Jessie to Iceland for the summer of 2012?

Along the way I will be photographing, writing, connecting with this community that has formed around my blog, and my books. I’ll meet friends, both new and old. I’ll work on another book. I’ll give ad-hoc lectures and instigate some impromptu meet-ups. I’ll have coffee with people I’ve never met, spend lots of time unplugged and in the open air chasing the thing I’ve chased these last few years; my vision of the beauty of this world we live in and the people that share it with me. I’ll write about the entire adventure and take you with me constantly through this blog and the odd video update.

I sat in Vancouver’s Creative Mix conference a few weeks ago listening to the Head of Creative for Pixar Canada talk about what he called the Challenge:Ability line.  Where challenge is equal to our ability to meet that challenge we are most comfortable. Below that line is where challenge lags behind our ability and there is stagnation and boredom. Above that line is where our ability has to run to keep up with the challenge. It’s scary as hell but it’s what propels us forward. Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, talks about fear being the magnetic needle that points us precisely in the direction in which we most ought to be moving in order to do our best work creatively and personally. Both those voices are part of the larger chorus urging me forward to do this.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey as you have over the last years. I can’t wait to meet some of you. Once in a while I’ll be letting y’all know where I am and I hope we can make a way to meet and to share a meal together. If you have a spare couch I might even be induced to spend the night if you don’t seem too creepy and all Kathy-Bates -in-Misery’ish. I’ll soon be posting some ideas about my route and I’d love your input. Don’t do it now, because I’m trying to come up with a way I can put it all in one place instead of comments on multiple posts, but a little local intel goes a long way and if taking one diversion takes me to something little-known and amazing, then I’d be grateful to know of it. I’m not doing this to get anywhere, per se, but to enjoy the journey. And you’re part of that journey, so if I happen to be where you are and am not already completely peopled-out, I’d love to share a meal or a cup of coffee with you.

I will have no fixed address. I will often have no schedule or plan. It’s already distracting me at the oddest times, and is taking hours and hours of phone calls and prep to get my affairs in order.  I’m kind of nervous about the remaining work it’s going to take to get all the pieces in place, especially as I’ve so little time at home in the few months before I plan to throw my bag onto Jessie’s left-hand passenger seat, climb behind the wheel and start moving. In fact nervous doesn’t even describe it. Some moments it’s excitement. Some moments it’s just plain fear/terror/OMG!!. But that fear points me toward something amazing. It usually does in life, which makes it all the stranger to think we spend so much of our lives running from fear. I do  know, fear or no fear, that some of the happiest times of my life, some of the most enriching ones, have been when I’ve been in motion, when I’ve had fewer possessions, and when the highlight of my day was the people I’ve met.

Life is short and these dreams don’t chase themselves. In the face of the brevity of life and the wonders that await in the short span we’ve got, a little fear standing between us and our dreams – whatever they are – seems a poor reason, for not reaching out for those dreams.

If it all goes to plan, on February 27 I will have a going-away party/thing here in Vancouver at a friend’s studio, Jessie and I will spend the night parked out back, and when the sun comes up on February 28, we’ll grab a coffee and start our journey around this vast incredible continent.

So getting back to the post from last week, and my own response to the question I posed to you:

Life is short and therefore I will spend a year in motion, re-examining what it means to live more simply, meet new friends, photograph new beauty, and live new stories. I will experience the seasons and the geography and people of the continent on which I live and have spent so much time away from lately. I will risk the break-downs and the detours and the flat tires and the learning curve of maintaining a handmade truck when I haven’t the first clue how to do so much as change the oil. I will open myself to new friendships where my own inclination is to keep to myself. I will go to bed when the sun does and greet the dawn from my roof-top tent with a cup of coffee brewed by my own hands on a stove I had to light myself. I will be grateful for each passing day, each mile under the wheels, each unexpected diversion. I will get lost and some days I’ll stay lost. I will learn with an open mind. I will teach with an open heart. And I will share this journey with you. I hope you’ll join me, and along the way I hope you’ll share your adventure with me.

I wasn’t at all planning to do this. In fact I wasn’t planning to write what I did yesterday. But like I said, it just needed to come out and I think best by writing. And over the last 24+ hours I’ve been humbled, moved to tears and further entrenched in my resolve to live moment by moment, love harder, laugh louder, and risk more. It seems many of you have too. I think anything more I say now will only water down what I most want – and that’s to hear from you. Some of you wrote really moving comments, and if others of you haven’t read them, I encourage you to. But let’s take it a step further.

I’m asking you to help me with an experiment in community. If the internet is like a big house,  then this blog is a rapidly expanding living room filled with friends. Yesterday’s post seemed to stir something for many. I’d love to hear from you. And if it’s helpful for you to nail your colours to the mast, this is a good chance to do that. It’s great to be inspired, it’s another thing altogether to allow that fire of inspiration to ignite something that propels you forward.

You can write as much or as little as you like, but your words may resonate with someone in ways you could never have guessed, so be free with them. There’s a lot of people reading this thread – so if you’ve been moved to make a change, here’s an invitation to share it by finishing this sentence in any way you like:

Life is short, and therefore I will…

You’ll be hearing mine in a post very soon. For now, it’s your turn. Be bold. Be specific. And then go take that scary first step.

This isn’t really one of those helpful photographic posts, so if you’re jonesin’ for info on what gear I’m packing for New Zealand, you might want to just kind of move along But I’m bursting to say these things, and I’m hoping someone out there needs to hear. I do.

As some of you know there’s some big changes coming down the pipe for me and I’ll give you a full report as soon as I can. I’ve fought the urge to make these changes for a while now and something finally cracked.

I had breakfast with a close friend of mine yesterday and it’s that meeting that is making me write this, because I can’t keep it in this morning. His wife, one of my favourite people on the planet, is fighting for her life against inoperable brain cancer. She’s fighting, but she’s not well, and the doctors are talking in terms of quality of life, not healing, not remission. My heart is breaking for her. My heart is breaking for him. A young couple that, like all of us, thinks they have forever together, have all the time in the world to chase their dreams. But we don’t. None of us do. It’s an illusion.

Life is short. We seem to think that we’ll live forever. We spend time and money as though we’ll always be here. We buy shiny things as though they matter and are worth the debt and stress of attachment. We put off the so-called “trip of a lifetime” for another year, because we all assume we have another year. We don’t tell the ones we love how much we love them often enough because we assume there’s always tomorrow. And we fear. Oh, do we fear. We stick it out in miserable jobs and situations because we’re afraid of the risk of stepping out. We don’t reach high enough or far enough because we’re worried we’ll fail, forgetting – or never realizing – that it’s better to fail spectacularly while reaching for the stars than it is to succeed at something we never really wanted in the first place.

A woman emailed earlier this year. Her husband, the love of her life, was a fan of mine and he’d just come through a tough fight with Leukemia. She asked if I’d take some time with him, go shooting with him if he came to Vancouver, sort of as a celebration of his recovery. I said yes, of course, how could I not. But I was busy, about to travel, and could we do it in a couple months when summer rolled around and I had time to host him. Of course. Let’s talk soon. I got back two months later and sent an email saying, let’s make it happen! And 5 minutes later got a reply telling me the leukemia had returned with speed and fury and within days he’d gone. Even now, I’m writing this with tears, though anyone that knows me knows it doesn’t take much.

We think we’ve got forever and that these concerns that weigh us down are so pressing. We worry about the trivial to the neglect of the most precious thing we have: moments we’ll never see again. We talk of killing time, passing time, and getting through the week, forgetting we’re wishing away the moments that comprise our lives. We say time is money when in fact the time we have is ALL we have. Money can be borrowed, time can’t. We fear taking risks, unaware that the biggest risk we run in playing it safe is in fact living as long as we hope and never doing the things we dreamed of. And then it’s too late. We watched our favourite TV shows, we fought a losing battle with our weight, we picked up the guitar once in a while and never quite finished the french language courses we wanted to do. We managed to get a large flatscreen and new cars once in a while, but the list of things we’d have done if we could really, truly could have done anything, kept growing. And we never did them.

I don’t know how to wrap this up. There’s no resolution. I was in Sarajevo last week thinking about all this; I’d be walking the old city thinking how amazing it was, looking into the hills that surround it. And then it occurred to me, just over 15 years ago the citizen of Sarajevo that stood in this spot was likely to be hit by mortar shells or sniper fire. We’re all terminal folks. We’re all in the sniper scope. We’ve got less time that we think. For every ten people that email me and say, “I wish I could do what you’re doing. I wish I could follow my dreams, I wish, I wish…,” I wonder if even one moves forward. I hope so.

Whatever your dream is, find a way to make it happen. Your kids can come with you. Your job can wait. You can find someone to feed the cat. I know, I know, there are so many reasons we can’t and some of those reasons are valid. Life is not only short, it is also sometimes profoundly hard. But I think sometimes our reasons are in fact only excuses. If that’s the case, take stock. I talk alot about living the dream, and I’m an idealist, I know it. But it’s not self-help, positive-thinking, wish-upon-a-star. It’s the realization that life is short and no one is going to live my life on my behalf. And one day soon – because it’ll seem that way, I know it – my candle will burn out; I want it to burn hot and bright while it’s still lit. I want it to light fires and set others ablaze.

Life is short. Live it now. And live it with all your strength and passion now. Don’t keep it in reserve against a day you might not have. While the ember is still lit, fan it to flame. Be bold about it, even if your circumstances mean all you have is to love boldly and laugh boldy. Because now is all we have, and these dreams won’t chase themselves.

End of sermon, thanks for listening. I just kind of needed to get it out there. It wasn’t the point of this but if you’re the praying type, send some mojo out for my friend and his wife. God knows who they are.

PS. If this post has moved you in some way, why not nail your colours to the mask. Read my subsequent post HERE.

Yours truly while contemplating my vision of beekeepers. Turns out my vision was to not get stung all over the face, thus the awesome hat. Photo Credit Gary Dowd.

I’m back from Bosnia-Herzegovina now, got in yesterday. Now back and in full swing. Client files to prep and deliver. Unpacking. Laundry. Stack of details. Then re-packing for 3 weeks in New Zealand and on the 28th I’m off to the land of Hobbits and Kiwis for 3 weeks in a VW with my cameras and the Legendary H on a personal project. In between that I’ve got a special project I’m working on that will lead me to a year living in a van down by the river. Or a Land Rover in various places between here and the other side of this vast continent. I’m still working out the kinks so I don’t want to show all my cards quite yet, but I’m pumped.

The new as-yet-unannounced plan takes me in several entirely new directions. One is a graduation of sorts. Later this month I’m releasing what will be, for a while, my last eBook about Vision-driven photography. It talks about some of the struggles and how to discover, or re-discover vision, and it’s a final plea for the folks who are still holding out, to reconsider how pragmatic this vision stuff really is. But vision is not the goal. Expression is the goal. And I’m feeling like the next step, as I continue to teach Vision-driven photography, is to discuss expression. So I hope you’ll all climb aboard when I release the next ebook, but even more I hope you’ll join me as I begin talking about the visual language, our means of expression. This is the rubber meeting the road kind of stuff. I’ve known it was coming for a while but wasn’t sure how, and…

To that end, and I’m really not meant to be talking about this, but, uh, I might have a friend and he might be really wishing he could tell you that he’s now started working on a 4th print book in a series of, uh, 3 previous books. And that book might be about the visual language and the ways in which we both speak about and speak through, the photograph. Lots of talk out there about photography, about gear, and WAY too much talk in these here parts about vision. It’s time to begin talking about photographs themselves and how we make them, and what they say. Or at least that’s what my friend says. I’ll tell you more when I’m allowed. I mean, when he’s allowed.

Will keep you posted on all these projects. This time at home is a layover of sorts. Just a chance to catch a breath and pay some bills between adventures, so I’m afraid there will be sporadic postings, but pop in once in a while because I’ll be talking more about all this stuff, giving some sneak previews as I can, and – I hope – posting postcards from the road in New Zealand. We’ve not yet slated the release of The Vision-Driven Photographer, but that’ll come soon as well.

Bosnia, November 04 – 14, 2010. Click the map to see it larger.

After a whopping 14 days home I’m heading to Sarajevo today to shoot for World Vision Canada in Bosnia. Very excited. ‘Round about this time every year they send me to Africa and as much as I adore Africa, last time it was Senegal and it was so stinking hot I’m thrilled to be heading to someplace I can pack my Icebreaker sweater and my wool socks. Might even throw in a toque, just because my Canadian passport says I can.

Be good while I’m gone. See you when I get back. I’ll do what I can to send a postcard from the field but as always that depends on how much time I have and whether or not I get convenient internet access. Don’t go clamouring for photographs, the client gets the see them first; they’ll show up in the new galleries when I can post them. Ciao!

So what do you do when you feel your vision has abandoned you? That it’s dried up or gone missing? I talked about this while I was in Kathmandu on a personal level but I’m seeing it all over the internet and in emails from friends. I can’t be the only one.

The downside to believing that our photography is an expression of our vision, and that photographic vision is connected to our personal vision, is that what’s going on in our personal life can affect our work, in some ways it must affect our work. Personally I wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want my art to be anything less than honest. I’ve seen several people post comments on Twitter lately that their vision is nowhere to be found. I’m in a funk now too, it’s just part of the cycle of being human and being creative. We have ups and we have downs. Some of us use those downs to create honest and powerful work, some just take the downs as what they are and wait it out. All of us, at some point, feel the hollowness that comes when we pick up our cameras and realize we’ve got nothing to say.

To be honest, I’m almost at the point where I’ve heard the word “vision” come out of my mouth one too many times. It’s a good word but it gets invoked like an incantation and if there’s one thing I know it’s that there’s nothing magic about vision. It’s not some guiding force that pushes us forward, protects us from the funk, or makes our images magically better. God knows other artists have no such thing protecting them from periods of malaise or indecisiveness. Vision doesn’t replace the need for struggle or hard work or simply making a choice and moving forward. It’s absence doesn’t mean we’ve got a reason to stop pushing forward, nor does it’s presence guarantee us amazing images. If I’ve ever given the impression that finding your vision is easy or that once found it’ll remain the same, then the error is mine.

One guy tweeted, “Screw Vision”. It made me laugh in agreement but I’m not sure that’s the answer either, though I know the feeling.  It might be healthy to go out and make some photographs without overthinking things for a while. Taking a break is healthy. Here’s what I know. We need to de-sacralize vision. It’s nothing magic. And we need to lighten up. We put so much pressure on ourselves. Can you imagine a songwriter doing a 365 Project where she has to crank out one song a day for a year? The thought of it exhausts me and I don’t even write songs. Or a sculptor heading to the studio with his chisels for a couple hours with the expectation of cranking out a dozen keepers? And then when he hits the wall he says, ah screw it, this vision stuff is over-rated? It might be time to slow down.

So what do you do when you can’t find your vision? The ebook I’m working on now talks about exactly this thing. But your vision is there, it just might be that it needs coaxing out. Push too hard and it just retreats. So ease up and give it some breathing room. Go live life for a while without the camera. Or go make some photographs with nothing in mind but play and experimentation, stop freaking out about making something great. Sometimes the muse needs a break, she doesn’t always respond well when pushed too hard. Go make something beautiful all the same.

So what do you do when you can’t find your vision, when the muse eludes you? Comments are open, I’d love to hear from you.

I’m off to Bosnia on Thursday, and I’ll be back on the 14th or thereabouts. Thanks for your patience over the last little while. I’ve needed a break from things and knowing that everyone here is cool if I don’t show up everyday makes it easier.