After going for more than 20 years without really experiencing a full winter season (and my Wisconsin based siblings would argue that Maryland doesn't really qualify as a winter season state)I have a hard time getting used to the days without light and the blustering winds that make walking the street with a camera less enticing than it is even in the sultriest days of summer.
As if I needed reminders, my lack of discipline during the past three months (both in my pursuit of photography and in the occupation that pays at least a few of the bills around here)has made it clear to me in so many ways that I am not a photographer. Five years ago, when I picked up my camera again, it was enough to produce numbers: if I could shoot one roll of film a week, or two, or perhaps three, I would at least have something to choose from. Now roughly 20,000 exposures later (and although that number is laughably tiny for most "serious" photographers, it's considerably higher than my pre-parenthood-hiatus average) I know that I need to concentrate much more on content and technique and I doubt I have the patience, focus and time to do it. So far it has been enough to live with a kind of diaristic narrative approach. But even in this respect, what I do is not even that. For the most part I continue to ape the work of photographers I admire and feel disheartened by the gulf between my work and theirs.
