A Photographer's Meditation
Illuminated Stream, Early Morning Light, nr. Plymouth Vermont
Photograph was made with a 4x5/5x7” Deardorff Camera, Schneider 180mm Symmar f/5.6 on Kodak Tri-X film developed in Edwal FG-7. Gelatin Silver print was made on Oriental Seagull, Glossy developed in Kodak Dektol.
I came across this meditation several years ago in D-MAX, a newsletter for black and white film photographers. I was so moved by the message that I copied it down and the words have lived on in many successive camera bags and packs over the years. I pull them out when the spirit beckons or I am unsure, to remind myself that it will be through hard work and growing beyond boundaries and preconceptions that I will become the photographer I know is inside me:
"As I stand in the falling morning mist, I fear that I once again, have failed to capture that which is the true meaning of the vision nature has presented me. I stand and wonder if this, my quest for an artistic balance in a life of labor and stress, is truly a calling I can legitimately claim. For it is not a lack of tools that I suffer, but a lack of time and experience with those tools. Preparation, poor at best, has led me to this moment and left me not with a trophy of perception but instead, another cliched remnant of reality, veiled in mediocrity.
I now realize that for the photographer, it is the balance of inner self and technical ability that yields the final prize. While rare and often curious in nature, we insist on dismissing our failures not blaming our own ignorance but instead the fortitude of our equipment. Perhaps as I grow to understand the nature of my actions, I will become more sensitive to this failure and help others, as well as myself, grow beyond these boundaries and become the photographer that I know I am."
please feel free to share
Regretfully D-MAX is no longer published. Back issues are still available from the View Camera Store.