It's Deeper Than We Thought

Morning folks!

Well it has been a while again hasn't it.

There I was at the start of the year saying I am going to do as much as possible photographically, and here I am, at around 4.30AM nearing the Summer Solstice, sat here typing when in reality I should be out there being inspired.

Inspiration Doesn't Live Here Any More

Ah, sweet inspiration.

That thing that gets one out of bed in the morning and spending vast amounts of money on film, chemicals and paper.

I actually feel at the moment that The Muse, has packed her bags and gone on holiday with the other Muses.

Yep, no sausages, not a single one - to-wit, I picked up a really nice Gitzo CF monopod and Novoflex ballhead back in March, to use as a little extra help when using the SWC/M and you know what, apart from being cleaned and greased, they have sat there waiting.

For my Mojo has gone. 

There is no lead in my pencil. 

I am as dead as a Norwegian Blue.

Certainly, this rather perplexing state of affairs can be ridden through - I have been there and have advised others also on how to get through it. 

This usually amounts to: 

Get out there

Try a different camera

Limit yourself to a single lens

Stop moaning, it happens to everyone

Y'know, chirpy stuff along those lines. 

Does it ever work? 

Well maybe sometimes. 

I know for me it has.

I also know it is something I have to ride myself - the Bronco Of Despair is snorting; its foam-flecked mouth grimacing a terrible, toothy 'Git Ahn!'

I have no choice but to climb aboard and hold on tight till the Bronco is spent.

Because it is like that. It's emotionally distressing. You question everything.

I have even stopped looking at secondhand gear which is unheard of.

I normally spend my life seeing - looking at pictures I will never take in the sound knowledge that such visual tomfoolery will in the end be of benefit to compositional skills. 

Looking is learning.

However even that side of me has gone.

My eyes are as dead as a sharks eyes.

I have to say in my defence that there are at the moment two things which haven't helped. 

The first is DIY. 

11 windows and 3 doors, all coated in their remarkable Victorian lead and linseed ground and then carefully decorated in a sky blue linseed paint. AND THEN, fecked around with by subsequent post-War generations. 

Ah jings, how ghastly is acrylic paint! It turns to shit and says: 

"Go on, have a go if you're hard enough. You've a hell of a job on if you decide to take all this back to the wood."

So what did I decide to do?

Yep and it is still ongoing.

I am repainting with linseed paint by the way and learning craft skills of a different sort, however it takes time - shed-loads, like every weekend and day off since the start of April.

The other thing is a PVD.

Detailed here before, a year in, despite the exhortations of my local Optician, it really doesn't seem to be getting any better.

"It's amazing," he said, "one day it will just clear. Your brain will have learned to deal with the swirly mistiness and everything will become crystal clear!"

Well nearly a year later, my brain is certainly taking its time. 

I can see, but it is more akin to looking through random lenses - Zeiss Distagon one minute and then next Yaochong Super Effect Lens.

Not much fun actually, because it limits what I look at and how I see it. 

I cannot background process composition because I am having to make sense of almost everything.

Add in to the mix, many years of playing in bands and deafening, care-free, non-thinking about hearing protection which has resulted in a constant whistling in my right ear which never leaves me, and it is no surprise my brain is having a hard time keeping up.

It's Deeper Than We Thought

Thinking about this state of affairs and how absolutely dead I feel about something which has occupied a large part of my adult life has made me think that photography can do strange things to a person.

I think it might well be more than just a pleasurable hobby.

I go through sloughs with writing and making music, but even in the midst of them, the feeling of absolute null is never quite as bad as this. 

I remember back in the early 2000's having the same feeling about photography and it lasted for over a year. 

Certainly I was younger then - I think I can work my way through it quicker now, but it is a weird feeling.

It's not as if I've stopped buying AP for a few weeks or started to completely ignore the fact that BBC4 actually have a photography programme on, which I should be watching.

No, it's a strange one.

It's like my own personal imprint; my production and editorial department, have packed their bags and gone off to join the Muses on the Costa . . . 

Everything has gone.

I take my cameras out, look at them, enjoy their heft, run through the shutter speeds and carefully pack them away again.

I've boxes full of film and paper to use.

It's just that I can't.

I'll get through it though. I have before and I will again.

Lack of artistic inspiration runs like a rich seam of ghastliness through every creative discipline. 

It can last weeks, hours or years, sometime lifetimes, but to me this is a temporary hitch.

It will require time, effort, TLC and patience.

Oh and LOVE.

I'll get there.

It'll be hard, but I will.

Oh and I very nearly knocked FogBlog on the head last month. 

There seemed no point - hardly any readers and those that do, having to put up with lengthy diatribes about ephemeral musings.

Yep, nearly got the V.E.T. in.

But then, this morning I think, well, that would be just stupid - I've been writing this for 9 years now, which has involved from me and you, commitment. 

It would be a shame to administer euthanasia when it has only got a broken toe.

So, we'll keep going - and thank you for keeping going with me.

Writing this hones other compositional skills.

What am I like? 

Just a blunt object that needs to be honed in many ways - nearing the beyond-the-midpoint of 'Fecking hell, this is it!'; realising that life is precious and to be appreciated every day.

That light is actually made from the same stuff.

I started this at 4.30AM - it's now nearly 6.30 and the morning light has changed from a soft ice-cream glow, to a be-shadowed blanketing light. letting shafts of sun through into this normally deep Winter Glen-like outlook. 

It's wonderful. 

Oh to have the time to be awakening by a rushing river, as the suffuse smells of damp foliage and earth start to warm, and (like the best curry spices when heated) overwhelm the senses as you set up your tripod and await that palmful of inspiration from Mother Nature herself.

See, I am getting there already.

Over and oot - take care and thanks AS ALWAYS for reading,

I'll leave the last word to a postcard I have owned for a few decades. 

It belonged to my Aunt and made her laugh and it makes me laugh too.

Pure British post-War humour par excellence.