Find Your “And”
“To take interesting photos, you must live an interesting life.”
I can’t tell you who originally said that, but I hear it often enough that it’s sticking in my brain. In my Digital II class today, the instructor quoted it to all of us after going through a flip book demo. I said – mostly under my breath – to my friend Jamilyn, ‘maybe I shouldn’t be in the photography field then’. Obviously I was being sarcastic, as there isn’t any turning back for me now, but my instructor heard me. He asked me to repeat what I said, and I did. Then followed it by saying, “my life isn’t very interesting.”
The instructor, Ira, said, ‘sure you do.’ He asked about where I grew up. “Unfortunately, here.” My peers shared a laugh with me and then a few cases were made for the city in which we currently reside. Further into the talk, in which Ira decided to call Group Therapy, I mentioned home, in context to Montana. He asked why I call a place I didn’t grow up, ‘home’. As articulately as I could, because I like to sound smarter than I actually am, I told him, and my peers, I have never considered this city my home. Yes, I grew up here, and I live here again, but it isn’t because I want to. My home is Montana. Where in Montana did you live? Well, of all the places in Montana I lived, Kalispell is by far the best in my opinion. Why? It’s 45 minutes from my favorite place on the planet. I spent an entire summer hiking and driving Going to the Sun Road. I felt my best there. I felt at peace there. I felt that I belonged.
At one point during this sharing circle, I was asked what I liked. I responded by saying this, “I like to breathe fresh, crisp air without any hint of exhaust or cigarette smoke. I like to see squirrels scatter up trees, I want to lose my breath hiking the last little bit to reach the beauty at the end.” If I could have, I would have added that “I want to hear the creek below me, off to the left. I want the birds and bugs to sing to me. I want the wonder of what’s around the next bend. I want to rest at the end of the journey up, enjoy what I’ve worked for. Document what I see. Not feel rushed to get back down again, to rejoin the world that everyone else sees, and does. To return to the monotony of life.”
Ira told me about a wilderness area that’s not too far away and that one of our local mountains was known until 2019 as an area that was habitat to every species of animal it had been pre-colonization, and it was because of the disappearance of the Selkirk Caribou. I had heard of this, listened to a biologist who had studied this herd and talked about it extensively on a podcast. I shared that the efforts that were put out to try to bring back the population were futile and that there were officially none in the lower forty eight, due to predation and development. Then I added that I was very interested in wildlife biology. Seemingly in unison the entire class went “Ohhhhhh” and Ira said, that’s it, thats your ‘And’. You like photography and biology. He spoke about the things people are passionate about and how to add that to what they are photographing. He said, dream big, but chip away at it a little at a time without only thinking about the end game. We need to enjoy the journey, revel in the process, discover myself and let it translate through my images. Find what you’re good at and do it so well that if you stopped doing it the whole world would notice. While I am soaking in that advice, I know that I am a very small part in an endless sea of bigger parts and that I may not ever be renowned by anyone but the ones closest to me. I accept that and am content with it.
