INSPIRATION

 Since retiring from active shooting and selling all my professional gear, I have struggled to find something to get me to grab my camera(s) and go shooting. After relocating back to Georgia, I did for several years shoot for purpose on our town square. But that project has finally run its course.

These days, in the midst of the pandemic, I am finding it very difficult to get any inspiration. I have seen a number of photographers like photojournalist David Turnley) that have taken to documenting the craze of the pandemic masks. Personally, I can see little joy in that kind of project. As a former newspaper photographer, I did have occasion to have to shoot various first responder type of events but I always tried to show images that promoted the first responders rather than the event itself. It wasn't always easy.

For today's image, my wife and I had been in lockdown because of the so-called "pandemic" for a little over two months. Her writers' group had stopped meeting which took away my chances to be on the square for a couple of hours while they were meeting. I realized that one of the reasons I became proficient in my photography with the newspaper was because I was shooting almost daily. Everything from needing to get feature art to sports to covering newsworthy events, I would shoot 8-10 hours a day. These days I barely pick up my camera(s).

But, on this particular day, when my wife went to make our ham sandwich for lunch, I grabbed my camera and followed her to the kitchen.

I had been shooting a lot with the Fuji X100S cameras at an aperture tending more toward f8 rather than the way I shot a lot at wide open apertures, anything from f2 to f5.6 depending on the lens's capability. I purposely opened the camera's lens for this shot to f2, focused more on her hands, and grabbed this shot. While it was shot in color, I have never been a lover of color film, negative or positive, as my first inspirational photographers were Ansel Adams for his b&w teachings and Henri Cartier-Bresson for his subject matter.

So, the lesson here is find joy in the commonplace. That is what happened for me here. I am still struggling for inspiration almost a year later because of the pandemic restrictions but I keep trying to notice the simple, the mundane, the overlooked images that are still out there.