Yesterday morning I took Ruckus out to a field to play frisbee and get some of his energy out before a grooming appointment. Conveniently my wife works at the pet store where he went to get groomed so I was able to drop him off and then head home with a couple hours to myself. I haven’t walked around town with my camera in a few weeks and I decided that doing so would be a good use of my spare hours. So I grabbed the M262 with the 28 and headed out the door and down the street.
I often struggle to photograph in the winter, not only out in the landscape but especially around town. Something about thew world being cold and dead just makes the vibe a little less inspiring. I think this is part of the reason that I have not really made that much of an effort to get out and shoot lately. But I felt like challenging myself, on two fronts: shooting around town in the winter and forcing myself to shoot the 28 around town, which I find to be a harder environment in which to use the 28. It can be harder to fill the frame at the distances you find yourself working at.
So I went in to it assuming that I would struggle, between the shooting environment and the tool choice, and that if I was able to come away with anything I was happy with, that would just be a bonus. I generally felt dull and uninspired most of the walk, but that's how it goes sometimes. But as I walked longer I was able to start to see things here and there, allow things to speak to me. And some photos started to emerge.
I found myself, unsurprisingly, drawn to the trees, to the twisted branches of cottonwoods stretching to the sky in quiet repose. And to the stillness and emptiness, the slumber of the world, a reflection of the ancient patterns of creation that still find themselves at work around us and through our all-too-human world, despite our best efforts to shore ourselves up against the Other of Nature.
I can’t say that I’ll miss 2024 much. It was a rough year, which seems to have been a strangely universal experience. I’m cautiously optimistic about 2025 but maybe only for the fact that I can’t really imagine how it could be much worse than 2024. Maybe. How does that saying go? It gets worse before it gets worse? Something like that. But I’d be very happy to be wrong.
