A Fresh Start

Well, I’m back. Again. As you can maybe tell, there’s not a whole lot here. When I re-activated my website, it had been on pause for well over a year, which means all the content had been stagnant for well over a year. That content was designed to attract potential clients, as I was a freelance photographer looking to, ya know, MAKE SOME MONEY.

But now I am gainfully employed, and have been for some time. I do work that I quite enjoy, that incidentally has nothing to do with photography, or graphic design, or anything creative. And it’s great! It pays the bills, puts some money in the ol’ savings account. But it’s also somewhat of an active job. A manual labor job. The kind that makes you want to kick your boots off on the weekend and not do anything. And nothing is what I’ve been doing— it’s made me quite lazy. I’ve been going on significantly fewer photo trips. I have been taking fewer hikes. (read: I haven’t been taking any hikes.)

And I realized something recently. When I’m not worried about posting to a blog, or trying to create a YouTube channel, or feeling responsible for much of anything outside of what is currently putting food on the table, I find I tend to do those things… less. Don’t misunderstand. I love photography. But when it was a means of paying the bills, when it was something I had to do, and I had to find ways to do it that generated income, it made up quite a bit of my daily stress. And when I suddenly didn’t have to do it anymore, man it was nice to just set that camera down, turn off the website, and not think about it for a while.

And so I have. But I think it’s out of my system. I think I’m ready to pick up the camera again— not for making a living, but for enjoying my hobby. And holy shit is that a refreshing thought. Now I get to talk about my photographs from a more candid perspective, without fear of offending or alienating potential clients. I get to be who I am, who is kind of an unfiltered smart-ass. And that means everything.

So I ditched my previous posts. I mean, I didn’t delete them— that would be foolish. But I un-published them, and they’re going to sit in the archives for a while. I do think some of them are still relevant, and I do think they might return at some point. But some of them were created simply for the sake of creating something. Because I had to. And sometimes I sounded like a pretentious a-hole. Because, well, I had to.

I also pulled my previous photos down. Not because I didn’t like them. I love my past work. But I’ve seen it, a lot. And as an artist at heart, I get to a point where I’m just tired of looking at the same shit all the time. Even if it’s my own shit. I want to see new shit, and in order to do that, I have to shoot new shit. You get the idea.

So this site is going to be a bit sparse for a little while. As much as I would love to crank stuff out on a weekly basis, putting myself on a schedule would completely defeat the purpose of this whole thing.

We’ll see what happens. I may realize this is a fool’s errand and say “screw it all.” Especially if SquareSpace takes another price hike.

Until then, stay tuned.