I’m kind of a book junkie. Boarders, Bookshop Santa Cruz, the Public Library* these places are like little dispensaries of crack for me. But not just any book. Ok, well just about any book. I tend to read in themes. For a while I was working my way through the collected works of the Puritan John Owen (16 fat little volumes in Elizabethan-interjected-with-Latin-footnoted-up-the-wazoo on the nature of humanity and the Puritan take on our communion with god). Another time it was all about brains. How the brain works, what is the difference between the brain and the mind, how the brain falls in love, etc. And of course there was the series on world history, evolution, physics. I read everything I could find by Wendell Berry** and I love Flannery O’Connor.

The point is I read a lot. I don’t know. Maybe I’m trying to make up for all the goofing off I did at KU.

When you read as much as I do you are bound to come across a ton of stinkers – or as a friend calls them “steamers” as in steaming piles of ….

So when I find a book that really resonates I slow down and bore into it. And I love that. I love finding a book, or any creative work really that I resonate with – that makes me think “me and that guy/girl could be pals. I bet we even like the same beer.”

Matthew B. Crawfords “Shop Class as Soul Craft: an inquiry into the value of work” is one of those books.

I haven’t always been a photographer, but I have always been in the trades in one form or another. I’ve always felt like there are two ways to approach the trades. There are the guys (sorry, they are mostly guys) who don’t see it as a vocation and feel no fidelityto the work (Crawfords word) and there are those who do. I’ve never been the best tradesmen. I’m not the worst by far but there are some real masters that I’ve met and worked with over the years that have a kind of Zen Master-Obi Wan mastery over their particular specialty that at times can make you feel like a rank beginner. Crawford writes about the value of the trades and our need to return to teaching them as a valuable soul-crafting endeavor. Ever more so in todays out sourcing, pseudo-do-it-your-self-er times.

One of the concepts he talks about that I have believed for a long time but have never really been able to articulate is that of fidelity. In context he is talking about fidelity to the bike he is working on and fidelity to the customer who brought it to him for repair. He shares his struggle with wanting needing to do justice to the machine itself and repair it to it’s former glory Vs. his fidelity to not run up the customers bill and yet still do right by his customer.

What has this to do with photography? Everything.

When I’m out on a shoot my two fidelities if you will are to the image. I’m a photographer. I watch and plan and prepare all for what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the “decisive moment.” That moment that is so rare that arises and disappears quickly but that if you are attentive and prepared you can capture in the opening of the shutter. It is the moment in time that is essential to telling the story, expressing the idea, creating an image that resonates with the viewer. But there is also a fidelity I feel to my clients. I feeling that everyone deserves the best images yet not everyone can afford a photographer who can capture those images and tell their story. Which leads to a struggle with my fidelity between my art and craft as a photographer and my business as a photographer who has rent to pay.

I haven’t yet figured out how to bring those two fidelities closer into alignment.

Anyway. When I get all gummed up thinking about these things I find that going out with my camera and walking the streets hunting for images for no other reason than to make images helps to clear my head. Which is good because as a photographer you have to constantly be working on your craft, as well as shooting “just for yourself.” Doing so results in a further perfecting of your abilities, which should be a no brainer for anyone who considers them self a “pro.” There is nothing like just doing your art that reconnects you with your own true self especially if you’ve been doing to much thinking about the art. Or as Yoda would say “there is no try, only do.” Or something like that.

Following are a few images I found while on one of these little excursions. The first two are from today. The last is from a few weeks ago when I wandered into the local flea market with a 50 year old Rollei TLR film camera.

I can’t say that after finding these images I got any further along the path of reconciling those tensions I wrote about above. However, I can say that in finding them I also found a deep soul level satisfaction. And in the end that is why I’m a photographer anyway.

Hope you enjoyed the images,
Mike

*Until I got a huge fine and they wouldn’t let me back in.
**Highly Recomended