Resolved

Imagining myself an artist

If this isn’t nice, what is?

From High Resolution to Resolved, twenty-twenty-six has started off with hits. Four more keepers to go with the four from day one, makes eight good ones after seven days of shooting. I’m going to enjoy it while I can. Like baseball, these things are streaky over the long haul. Some days there’s nothing or nothing good. Some days you get four or five. It can be feast or famine. I can’t imagine eight for seven being a sustainable average. I can’t imagine that in fifty-two weeks I will have recorded four-hundred and sixteen good ones. I can’t imagine…

So, I can’t imagine. The preceding paragraph is a dramatic reenactment of how I came to this realization. At first it seemed to be just a turn of phrase, a way of speaking. There were all kinds of things I couldn’t imagine, even when I was visualizing the very thing I was claiming not to be able to imagine. One day it clicked why I used this expression so often. It was a note-to-self, a confession of a deeper truth that I didn’t want to confront. I can’t imagine.

If I could imagine, I would be a painter or a novelist or a poet or all three. But I can’t, so I’m not. I know because I’ve tried. I so much wanted to be an artist that I habitually abused several substances, threw away a promising academic career, and left a good job in the city. But the tyranny of the blank page is paralyzing. I don’t see potential in a blank canvas, only the void. Literally and figuratively. I see what is, not what could be.

Then I found photography and specifically street photography and more specifically digital street photography. With digital street photography I found a way to be an artist without having to imagine anything that wasn’t right there in front of my eyes.

Once I picked up a camera it took some time to learn how to look and how to see and trust what I see. It took some time to quit the addictions, especially the paycheque. I’m still a bit wary of calling myself a photographer because my idea of photography is conceptually unconventional to say the least. But in twenty-twenty-six, I’m finally comfortable with the idea of imagining myself an artist and that’s a big deal for me.

But I still can’t imagine hitting four hundred this year.

Untitled (Let’s Dance) recorded in Tours on the fifth of January twenty-twenty-six

Untitled (Brown, Beige, Pink and Orange) recorded in Tours on the sixth of January twenty-twenty-six

Untitled (Blue Bottom Band) recorded in Tours on the sixth of January twenty-twenty-six

Untitled (Frozen Fire) recorded in Tours on the sixth of January twenty-twenty-six

High Resolution

Good Looking

Puddling Through a See Change