The beat

I’m willing to admit I march to the beat of my own drummer. I can’t help but feel my beat is off kilter to mostly everyone I know. I’m definitely speaking with a sense more self awareness than self deprecating myself or demeaning others. I’m starting to come around to be more proud of my beat and own it. I’m an over thinker and feeler but I can live myself as I fall asleep each night. I like this about myself, even when it doesn’t always work out or if I feel extra lonely. Beats the alternatives.

I saw a group of buskers outside of the jazz fest boundaries as they were riffing along to some prerecorded music. As I was watching and enjoying their presence, this drummer had a way about him … you know how you can look into a crowd, pick out one person and just wonder “what are they like? I want to know.” So I motioned if it was ok to make a photo and his yes gesture was different than other yes gestures. I could be projecting. Maybe I am. I just felt right about something in the moment. Either way, thank you to this mysterious drummer.

Earlier in the evening, I was proselytizing in conversations with other photographers that none of this (gear, lenses, shows, material things) matters. Same goes for throwing a photo up on a wall. Is this why we make photos? To acquire gear and to relentlessly try to publicly show what we’ve done? I guess if that is your purpose in your life, it does matter. Until it doesn’t. The rush to make photos and get these new photos and ideas on a wall, as an exhibition, seems a bit silly to me. But what do I know? I march to my own drummer.

What matters to me, as if you want to know, is feeling something while making photographs. Many of my photographs I’ve shown publicly or have had prints sold were made during deep depressions and chaos within my life. When I make a photograph, it isn’t because the person is doing something funny or unique, what clothes they are wearing … it’s how they are moving, or not moving, in the same world I’m inhabiting with them. Usually there’s something I relate to or want to relate to. It could be a sense of movement, perceived happiness, success or just a general perception of being aligned to a similar beat. In an interview last year, I tried explain that it is like an emotional synapse that makes me make a frame. I think that will always be true. It’s also not something unique to me. All of my favorite photographers seem to have made their best work based off of feelings. I admire them the most because it seems like the photographs were made without some grand intention. Instead there’s some sort of emotional and intentional purity involved. I’m not saying this is the best way to make photographs, but for me it is. I’ve learned more from these photographers about photography and life outside from what we experience here than other photographers.

So, that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. My own purpose and being in this world. And how it interacts with other personalities, personally and professionally.

This particular night, I treated myself to an old fashion to walk around with, watched and worked my way through the crowd a bit, tried to get as close as possible and to feel and share what was happening on this particular stretch of East Ave. with others who seemed to be within my beat.