Lies, Truths, Answers and Mosquito Bites

The picture I feature with my blog today is really the subject of this post.  All of the past 3 days here at Lovett Castle (and if you have seen my house, you know I jest) have been SNOW DAYS--great for my kidlets, yes, but challenging for someone trying to get some work done.  And not only have those days been snow days, but they have been REALLY SNOWY DAYS, as has been noted on every television and radio newsprogram the whole wide country over.  I'm sure you've heard of it---SNOWPOCALYPSE, SNOWTORIOUS B.I.G., and probably a multitude more that I haven't heard.  So, everyone has been in a snowy frame of mind.  Which is where we come to this photograph---a striking ice storm shot over a frozen pond, everything dressed in a lustrous, pristine white coating of crystals.  Very apt for where a large part of us are right now.

But, that photograph is a LIE.  Yep, a big, fat liar-liar-pants-on-fire lie.  It was taken in the full heat of a luscious, green July with frogs croaking and mosquitos buzzing in my ears, no doubt some of them grabbing a quick lunch at the restaurant located in that one spot that I can't scratch on my own back.  Nice waitresses there, I hear.  Anyway, that image is a black and white conversion of a digital infrared image exposed in full sun, 90 degrees out, at least, everything leafy and green, felt like the equatorial jungle though it was on some backroad in southwest Iowa. 

 

Several years ago, I purchased a consumer digital camera.  Which for me, is just not the 'done thing'.  And I don't mean to sound arrogant about it, although that comment probably bleeds arrogance at first blush.  The reason I don't purchase consumer cameras is because, in general, they don't hold up to the considerable use and abuse I foist upon them.  However, when I bought that camera, I had a plan.  I bought the nicest, but cheapest camera that would accept my collection of lenses, and, when it got here, I promptly relabeled the package and sent it off to have it converted to infra-red.  Turned out to be one of the best creative decisions I ever made.  That little plastic-bodied camera is still with me, and still makes pictures that can be blown up to 20x24 enlargements easily.  And, for that infra-red camera, that image is the truth.  As true as a photograph can be, anyway. 

I think of creativity as a way of looking at things.  A way of providing new answers to questions, maybe questions that have been asked a million times already.  And, when faced with the question of how to photography that delightfully green swamp in the picture, well, I came up with an answer, that, for me, was unique.  BUT, and this is IMPORTANT---IT ISN'T THE ONLY ANSWER.   See, when you take as many shots as I do--100,000 or more in a year---things can get a bit stale if you don't look for new answers.  A fresh new answer brings a fresh new feeling to all the rest of my work as well--not just the series of infrared shots I made that particular hot July day.  It bleeds into the rest of my work--my portraiture, nature work, wedding photography, underwater photography---it bleeds just as surely as that mosquito did when I flattened it on my shoulder.  But, if I revisited that particular location today, no doubt, my answer would be different.  If I had had only a visible-light camera with me that day, another answer would have come into my brain. 

And that's it, for me anyway.  Finding new answers to keep EVERYTHING new. Sometimes a whole SLEW of answers to the same problem.  Sometimes, the answers flow---and those are the blessed days.  Sometimes, they come hard, as hard as the ground underneath that pile of snow outside my window.  But, hey, that's life, isn't it. 

Be well.