∴So Long to Solid Ground∴

and the unexpected freedom of limitation

“You can plan everything ahead, do your research and set out into the world knowing exactly what you are looking for, or you can trust the photographic process and set out into the world allowing it to reveal itself along the way. Most times, the best work is born out of a combination of the two.” 

Benedetta Casagrande

A few years ago I was in a somewhat ambivalent position with photography. I was working more than ever, and I was happy with my roster of steady clients. But my personal practice had begun to feel somewhat forced. It seemed like I was simply shooting the same few photos over and over. I liked them, but they began to feel redundant. I was dissatisfied, but at the same time I was also feeling a lot of motivation. It was an odd mix. I can’t remember what it was that inspired me, but I decided to buy a quality 35mm camera.

I first used the camera in Dallas, Texas on a trip to visit my wife’s family. While this image is similar to what I’d been shooting digitally, most of what I shot there felt like a departure from what I’d been doing.

Shooting film changed my approach a lot more than I’d expected. Suddenly there were all these limitations: the price, the speed, the uncertainty of no instant feedback. Each limitation forced me to think about what I was doing, making me a bit more aware of the photographic process. Film prices were hurting, so I had to pick my shot and make it count. I’d only get one per subject, maybe two if I really felt I needed it. It slowed me down a lot, getting me to consider what I was shooting quite a bit more than I had before. I spent a lot more time looking through the viewfinder. Then, when I did take a picture, I wouldn’t get another look at what I’d seen in that little square of glass for sometimes a couple of weeks. My relationship with whatever I’d photographed became a bit more precious. There was no guarantee I’d see it again.

I stopped at a frozen lake on a car-camping trip right at the end of winter. I’d brought along a thermos and was sipping coffee as I walked out onto the ice. I was just learning about the connection between new experiences and new photography.

So I began photographing different things than before. There was a random quality to it. A little of this, a little of that, as William Eggleston said. Some of it felt meaningful. Some of it felt direct. I read something by Italo Calvino at the time that really captured how I’d been feeling.

You walk for days among trees and among stones. Rarely does the eye light on a thing, and then only when it has recognized that thing as a sign of another thing: a print in the sand indicates the tiger’s passage; a marsh announces a vein of water; the hibiscus flower, the end of winter. All the rest is silent and interchangeable; trees and stones are only what they are.

Some photos point to meanings outside their frames. Some are simply photos of nothing more than what’s in them. Photographing like this, with a sense of openness to what caught my attention, started to shift the sand underneath my identity as a street photographer. I felt a great deal of uncertainty about it for a while. I’d spent time and effort building that identity. I believed in it. But in letting it go I found a new freedom in photography. Suddenly, all of it counted. The limitations introduced by changing my camera had somehow begun to remove the limitations I’d put on myself.

I became fascinated with details and how they could suggest more than just what you see.

I was slowly building a new collection of photographs that looked very different to my previous work. I knew what I was doing before, but all these recent images were at once distinct, and lacking certainty. I was happy with how they were looking, and they felt mysterious to me in a way I hoped they would feel to others. But I had to admit, they didn’t feel cohesive. So I started pulling out images, printing the ones that resonated with me, looking at them side by side, and I started finding motifs and recurring ideas, almost as if I was picking up on a train of thought. Getting to look at the work like this, everything still felt enigmatic, but tighter. The images started working together, and I was learning what to look for.

Currently I have a little over 100 of these pairs. They’re a part of a project I’ll be working on throughout the year, and writing more about here.

I also found that I’d been returning to a certain type of place quite a bit, the low-rise suburbs of Seoul. I’d always preferred photographing the people and pace of the city, but now I tended toward the quieter, slower parts, places where people were settled and belonged. People passed through the city. They stayed in the suburbs. Part of that was practical: the slowness of those places made them a lot easier to photograph as I was coming to terms with film. That might have been what got me there, but I stayed because it was here that I began to recognize my own experience of settling in Korea, and started seeing a way to express that in images.

I found in these places a sense of permanence that mirrored how I’m feeling now living in Korea.

It’s hard having one of your identities shaken. But it’s been a deeply meaningful experience for me. It’s helped me to dial back hunting for a specific type of image because I feel like I ought to if I want to live up to the persona I’d created, and instead pay closer attention to what I notice. And photographing like that has made it all feel much more personal, like there’s something of me in these photos. Not my opinion, or my judgement, but my character and sensitivities. All these photos have that quality for me, of having had a direct line to my inner world. Trusting in the process of simply going out to photograph and respecting what catches my attention has helped me figure out where to go and what to shoot next.

Photography has become an experience again, and that alone has been worth stepping off solid ground.