A couple of years ago, Leica came out with the first black and white digital camera, it is called the Monochrome M. It is widely considered the future of black and white digital photography. It drew me from the first. I told a friend I wanted to grow as an artist, I do not want to stagnate as I get older. Photography is an elemental part of my life and my work.
But the world has changed, and this camera cost nearly $8,000 new and I just do not have anywhere near that kind of money. I have been studying the camera, following the reviews of it, watching the prices. I saw a nearly used model of the camera offered online for $4,000 and that tortured me a bit, Leica lenses (the camera is sold without them) can cost over $3,000. I don’t have that kind of money either. It was sold in minutes. I wanted to call badly.
But this is a camera that could take me to the next place, a very different place. I’d love to take photos with it for me, for you.
As many of you know, this has been a challenging time for us financially, I am still patching my life together after a divorce, recession, collapse of publishing and a four year struggle to sell our first Bedlam Farm.
I kept telling myself that I just have to let go of the idea that I can have this camera, it would enable a kind of growth and exploration and fulfillment that is important to me. But one of the lessons of the world and for me is that we can’t always have everything we want. I went to crowdsourcing a few years ago to help me buy my Canon, which was essential to completing my book “Talking To Animals,” being published next Spring.
That was a difficult decision for me, I rationalized it by the fact that i do not charge for my photos, they are not watermarked, they are offered for free to anyone who wants to print them, download them or use them as screen-savers. Lots of people do.
My Canon is wearing down a bit, I love it and will continue to use it, it does need some repair work. And I feel some sense of urgency about the Leica, it is a magnificent camera, built to capture the detail for great black and white photographs that is sometimes hard for regular digital cameras.
I am 68 years old and I will not give up my dreams, creative or otherwise, or my chance to grow. Some people are wary of crowdsourcing and I have gotten a number of messages jeering at me for going to the Internet to buy a camera. I do not regret it. I share my words and photos, they are free to anyone who can’t afford to pay for them. I got, but I give.
This blog has raised more than $130,000 this year for good causes for other people.
My photography has been elemental to the growth of my blog. I will never give up color photography, that is the way to capture the daily life of the farm and the animals here. But black and white photography is essential to the kind of evocative, emotional lifescapes I am drawn to do. I try them out from time to time now.
I thought of renting one of these cameras, but that costs nearly $400 a month. I am trapped between several realities – accepting where I am, and never accepting where I am, and living my life. Go to yourself. Be fulfilled. Within reason.
I can’t bear to sell my photos, I think of them as angels sailing out into the world to bring color and light and feeling to the world. I know for some people, that’s what they are. With or without this camera, I will keep on taking photos.
So I’m mulling it, can’t quite decide.
I can’t quite let go, and I can’t quite bring myself to pull the trigger on this one and launch a project for it, to buy it new would cost close to $10,000 with the inevitable taxes and batteries and accessories. And a Lens. To buy a nearly new one used is tricky, and not always possible, and that carries its own risks. I don’t know how I feel about this yet. I will never be comfortable asking other people for money, yet looking at the crowdsourcing sites, I see so many wonderful projects now being funded in just this way.
The world is changing, we can grump about it or adapt.
Once upon a time,I would simply have asked my publisher for creative support. Today, we are lucky if we get paid at all.
Maria and I are still working to stabilize our financial lives, it is hard but we are getting there, and I cannot justify spending any of our funds, there are none to spare. And I won’t let go of the need to advance as a creative person, a blogger and an artist. I also need to make some repairs to my Canon, it gets a lot of hard use.
I am also aware of time, and it’s meaning for me.
So a modern and somewhat exciting ethical dilemma. I am thinking on this, meditating on this. I might just have to let it go. I might just find a way to raise nine or ten thousand dollars. I might just ask for help. I might let go and move on. I will keep you posted and thanks for being here to share this process of decisions we call life.
