RE: I'm looking for inspiration!

DEAR JOHN & LIST,
        Yes, I have tried to give up photography. But first let me thank
everyone, yet again, for the existence of this list and for the frank,
sensitive, insightful, postings.
        After I had been an advertising and fashion photographer for 16
years in 1989, I had a near fatal horse back riding accident in the
mountains of Brazil in 1989. I had 7 surgeries and three years of
physiotherapy during which I had the opportunity to consider what I wanted
my future to be. I realized that the cool bearded dude on the Sistine
Chapel whose finger zapped life into Adam could use the same finger to
switch off my lights with no notice and when least expected. Nothing like
facing my mortality to get me to re-prioritize. Problem was that I threw
the baby out with the bath water. I hated the fashion industry and
photography along with it. I moved to Barbados and was struggling with my
photographic work. I decided to consider marketing, management, sales,
something else. My wife thought it strange but also knew that we needed the
income. I was researching the career change when, one night I had a dream
about a print that I was holding coming to life in my hands. I woke up
crying like a baby and realized that I could never leave photography.
        Very soon thereafter, one New Years Eve (Old Year's Night to some) I
saw some wonderful prints in the home of a Bajan family. They were filled
with love of my new Island Home, its light, and its people. I sought out
the photographer (then 90 years old, now deceased), made contact with the
Barbados National Trust, curated and contact printed the negs, and printed a
show that opened in May 1993. The photographer thanked me for "finally
making me famous after all these years". When I told my friend in the film
industry in NYC what I had done, he said, "Well, now it's your turn. How
about a show of your own work?" Well, 12 years, five individual, and four
group shows later, here we are.
        Soooooooo, why the long story? Simple! It was the love I felt in
those photos which re-awakened the love I had almost lost for photography
that put me on the track. Look for the love. "Follow your Bliss" as Joseph
Campbell always said.
CHEERS! BOB

 Please check my website: http://www.bobkiss.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: Grafist@aol.com [mailto:Grafist@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 7:00 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
Subject: Re: I'm looking for inspiration!

In a message dated 14/08/05 03:13:29 GMT Daylight Time, Ender100@aol.com
writes:

> I know that everyone will be different, but I wondered how other people
go
> > about this.
.....................................
You and Me and Photography.
                 I am entering my seventieth year of life on this planet and
sometimes wonder if there will be another chance to experience, at a future
time in another life, a relationship between myself and a technology which
has
so many tangents. Also, is photography as important to others in the same
way
as it is to me? Introduced to the marvel of the box camera at age five years
Grandpa explained how it worked and showed me some negatives on 120 film.
Owing
to shortages of chemicals for amateur use due to the war but mainly, I now
realize, because time was short and bombs were dropping around us with
worrying
regularity, we never got around to further processing the prints at that
time,
 but the picture in my mind of the box camera stayed with me until much
later
at age seventeen when I was making some cash of my own and began to
investigate by buying a bottle of universal developer, hypo crystals, a
couple of
dishes etc., etc., My girl friend was willing to pose for a few glamour
shots so
using the original box camera, step ladders and some sheets draped over as
background I came to realized what photography was all about.
Photography has been my constant friend through the years altho` several
times I have tried to give it up, always feeling a little guilty at doing so
since
it refused to do what I wanted ONLY when my own vision and imagination
became
tired or distracted, and I have always returned to some aspect of the art
with a renewed enthusiasm triggered off my some other seemingly unrelated
interest which brought me back to the familiar atmosphere of mind that we
all know so
well. Whether it is processing, shooting, reading, discussing with others
or
just realizing how photography has totally saturated our modern lives since
its invention, I can never again be without it, even if I never take another
shot or do another print. I spent most spare time of 2004 making a 12`` X
16`` back focusing camera and tripod from bits and pieces with which I will
make
contact negatives on Ilford multigrade RC paper. I have no idea, at present,
what the subject will be....probably landscape or still life or even
portraiture. But, for now, its just good to think about it all and future
possibilities.
                      Thanks to Gordon for making this list facility
available for discussion on photography which I note is becoming,
refreshingly, a
little more philosophical of late.
        Best wishes to all who have been similarly hooked. I am grateful for
the many many hours of apparent failure, but learning, experienced during
processing and I do not regret one minute of it.
      Has anyone else ever tried to give up photography ?
                                   John Grocott - Photographist
Received on Tue Aug 16 07:28:36 2005