I Shoot People

For several months now I have been focused on learning some new skills.  Instead of spending delightful hours in the studio with really wonderful people I have been holed up in the office with books and online courses that are — IMHO — no fun at all.  But then who ever said that life had to be fun all the time?

Anyway, it has been a good experience; even if not always enjoyable.

I have been feeling that this image is a pretty good metaphorical representation of my life during the last 5 or 6 months — and as it shall remain at least through September:  living in high-contrast.

Introspection

I’ve never been afraid to take a good long hard look at my life — I’ve never had the luxury of self-delusion.  Heck when I was a school-kid in Jr. High my mom dressed me in my dad’s army waistcoat because I was a chunky lad and because we didn’t have a lot of money and it didn’t matter that I looked like an oddball — there weren’t words like geek back then. — or that I didn’t make a lot of friends that was what I had to wear and if I had done anything to damage it so as not to be forced to wear it the consequences would have been even uglier.

I heard my share of taunting and jeering — although when you are as big as I was not a lot of it was said to my face.  And I had to come to terms with who I was and what I was early in life.  Having learned to do so it hasn’t been hard to continue — and I think in the bargain I’ve been the better off for it.

The difference between what we think and what we are

Peg and I have been making plans for the future while all this has been going on.  And it’s funny about what one pays attention to about themself and what you have to be shaken to pay attention to.

When I was in college one of my professors was very much into language, though his field was sociology.  We were talking one day and he told me that the most fundamental realities / truths / facts of a society are so basic that they do not even have words to express them.  (I suppose he may also have said it in class but truth be told I didn’t listen all that carefully in class) I have thought about this a lot and while it is hard to do if you rub your social mores the wrong way long enough and try to see the other person’s point of view hard enough it is possible to realize the biases we bring to various situations.

In fact, a dear friend of mine (yet a guy I had nothing but arguments with face to face) once gave me a little wooden coin (now lost to the dust of some drawer some where) and on it was inscribed on one side audio alteram partem and on the other side, hear the other side. First let me express my apologies to anyone who may have actually STUDIED Latin — because I’m pretty sure that the first phrase is NOT in Latin but in some pigeon Latin.  But having that coin in my pocket on many a day when I was trying to make a point to some idiot about their viewpoint, I rubbed that little disk smooth and shiney.

It’s hard to see the other guy’s point of view.

But back to my story….. which is that sometimes it’s hard to see our OWN point of view. It’s as if we have the contrast cranked up so high that we can’t see the relief, can’t see the contours, can’t see the textures of life.

It’s not important at the moment to go into the details of what I learned about myself – I’m sure that will become self-evident over the coming months.  But it is not always easy to see how we fool ourselves into thinking that the “self” we have invented in our head is the real one.

And how did it happen?  This time it was just a quiet conversation in which someone said something using different words than they usually do.  Nothing fancy, no confrontation, no angst — but a simple re-phrasing of a familiar idea.

Just like it’s important for me as a photographer to really LOOK at a scene, or a model, or some object I’m about to photograph sometimes it’s important for us to take a good hard LOOK at ourself, at our words, at our biases and say — OH — That’s interesting….. and then click the shutter so as to save that memory for ever.

Cheers.

Peter