As a writer and a photographer I have a natural instinct to share my experiences with my fellow humans. In fact this was so instilled in me that anything that occurred when I was without my camera or a pad of paper filled me with a deep sense of loss. Instead of appreciating the moment life offered me, I saw it as a wasted opportunity.
I’ve always been one for recording the world around me. As a kid I used to make ‘mix tapes’ of my favourite songs to cheer people up and when I couldn’t find a song to express my feelings I would write one instead. I made scrapbooks full of cut outs from photos, magazines and newspapers of interesting images or stories (sometimes they never made it to the scrapbook and were left in piles around me). Every time there was a good film on I would record it on blank tapes, to the point where I had no more space to put them all until eventually they went into the bin, some unwatched since the initial recording.
This naturally progressed to the inner world, slowly building up fantasies that now provide the basis of my science fiction novels. Many experiences struck accord so deep that I had to write about them, such was the need to share. Sometimes the only way I could truly express myself was through the written word. I once wrote a short story based on an incident that happened to me when I was hurt by my friends and unable to bring it to their attention any other way, I just let them read the story.
This way of viewing the world was easily accelerated by the medium of photography. I’ve always been able to find beauty in everything and anything and I’ve always enjoyed showing this everyday magic to others. An image can say a thousand words or so they say and I think I found that medium of expression intoxicating because of that. More ways to bare the soul, more ways to record.
Of course rarely does a picture, even a great shot, compare with the beauty of life. Real life is impermanent; a shot taken in less than a second is not. Before you can check it on the digital display the world around you has changed and never again will it be exactly the same. A photograph on the other hand can last for decades.
This reflection has at least sunk into the point where I realise now why I’ve been so obsessed with recording the world. I’m trying to hang onto it, clinging in the hopes of some refuge in the wonder I see around me. I want it to last forever to keep me safe. But every moment has a death, just like us, and perhaps I’ve been running from that; determined to reserve as much as I can in the museum of my work.
For along time when I started my science fiction novels I believed I was about to write something so fundamentally important that mankind just wouldn’t be able to survive without it. Now it’s possible I will do this, or even write a best seller, but I’m not caught up in that romantic idea any more, nor am I dependant on it occurring. I’ll write my books because I want to, because they do express something worthy to me; my life and my views of the future. I think that can be the only audience worth getting up in the morning to write for. If we do it only for others approval then the work is never truly ours to begin with, like anything else in life (e.g. how many of our careers are based on what our parents wanted?).
However, I think the reason I continue writing is because some part of my heart lifts when I do. I could easy just stop and dedicate the time to inner reflection, but perhaps a part of my time here is to pass a bit on, in whatever crude way I can while I can. I can however let go of the need to preserve everything. I can watch beautiful images from the world slip away even though I know I will never get to my camera in time. I can just bare witness to the wonder rather than loose myself in the frustration of another shot lost, another thing the world cannot share with me through my eyes. Rather I can be the witness for the world and let it be exactly as it is before letting it go forever, because who knows who else is watching with me in that moment. I could be sharing already.
I offer this for reflection…
[...] For the past year I took a break also from the photography. I haven’t been out in the field but I have take some occasional photographs from my house in the country. It is very beautiful here. I have found though due to high levels of fatigue this year that the process of not being able to get out and snap as much as I like has been disappointing. Whenever I see something beautiful or unusual I would feel the urge to get it down but I could never keep up with this. So this year has been in a lot of ways a practise in learning to bear the overwhelming need to record everything. [...]