When I first drove through Main Street in my town more than 15 years ago, I saw a big old brown dog, a retriever, I think, lying in the middle of the road. I stopped the car and jumped out and came over to the dog lying so still in the mid-day heat. “Hey,” I said, leaning over, “you okay, boy?” The dog started, growled, jumped up and walked indignantly to the side of the road, where he lay down in the shade of one of the trees.
A man yelled from the lawn to my right, “it’s okay, he just naps there every day when it’s warm, he likes to sleep on the yellow line. There is no traffic.”
Life has changed in my town. There was no Battenkill Books in that spot then, dogs do not sleep in the street any longer, there is a two-hour parking limit on Main Street now. Hubbard Hall, the arts center, is just down the street, so is the Round House Cafe. Everywhere across America, Main streets are struggling to keep businesses, to keep community. We are fighting hard to do that here.
The Battenkill Bookstore is something of a social miracle, a few years ago everyone thought independent bookstores were all dying, they are having a resurgence, even in our small town. Community lives where people fight for it.
Chris is here this week scraping the farmhouse so Ed Watkins can paint it. He is a photography buff and I took this shot of him scraping the paint off of the side of the house.
As I hoped and imagined, my new monochrome black and white camera has sparked a revolution inside of my head, it is changing the way I see the world and the way I see my photography. I will continue to take color photographs, of course, but I have been challenged by my new camera to get to another level in my photography, to see the world anew, and to rethink what a photograph is and how to give shape and meaning to the world.
That is why I wanted the camera, why I am grateful for your help in getting it. I can’t bear to be static, I want to keep growing, at every point in my life.
So after a week with this camera, I’ve come to an epiphany of sorts, one thing leads to another. Sunday, Maria and I are driving to New York City for the day to go to B & H Photo there. I’m bring with me a Canon 5D camera body, a big zoom lens and two smaller lenses. I’m going to trade all of them in for the new Canon 35 mm, which will be my primary lens for the black and white camera.
Maria is concerned that I am trading in some loved lenses, and that is so. But we can’t have everything we want in this world, we have to make choices and this one feels good to me. I don’t want to spend any more money or ask for more money, this will be good for me, and good enough for me.
I’m changing the way I approach photography. Rather than carry around a bunch of lenses and switch them around every day, I”m going to simplify and learn to master one or two good lenses. I’ve learned this about photography, the more you use the same equipment, the more you learn to master light and images and take powerful photos. I don’t need to be hauling big and heavy lenses around, I’m not shooting eagles on hilltops or wolves in the wilderness.
For black and white, I’m going to use nothing but the new 35 mm on my black and white monochrome, two or three lenses on the Canon digital color that will remain. I’ll keep my 80 mm macro lens and my 15-35 wide angle.
This new lens is said to be on a level with the Leica 35mm lens that costs $4,000 and that would have been best to use with the Leica Monochrome M that cost $8,000.
It isn’t about the lens, I know, it isn’t about the camera, it’s really about what the photographer sees or doesn’t see. This photo above, of Chris scraping the side of the house, is a good example of a photograph I never would have taken, even a few weeks ago.
Yet it says a great deal, about labor, craftsmanship, and the transition between one era of a house and another. Chris takes photos on a smart phone, and he is mesmerized by the 5D monochrome. We’ll take some photos together.
So another chapter coming in my photography. And in my life. (For those who might inevitably, wonder, Maria and I have paid off nearly all of the debts we incurred during our financial crisis last year, we will pay all of them off in good order, we are committed to that.) In the meantime, I will keep expanding my creativity and my art. Creativity is my ticket to mental health and financial health as well. How lucky I am.
So on Sunday, I will simplify and focus. The era of multiple lenses is over, I will have two fine cameras, one for color, one for black and white, and I hope to grow and expand my vision on them both. Nothing but lucky, and lucky to be excited. I am following my zeal, every day, and to the end.
