T
here is a period in my life when I liked to make very closely focused pictures that are akin to macro photography.
That period started about twenty years ago and continues to this day. Some period, eh?
For me, this work is something like a palette cleanser between other, more gritty subjects.
Of course, I’ve been trapped lately.
Eventually that will change, but nobody knows when or how. When it does I’ll be chasing all over wherever I am, making pictures of anything, of everything.
Because, that’s my magic. My way of contributing. The thing that I know best. These days I feel old, but i’m young. The age thing will go away once I make magic, with light and color.
Then there’s musical magic.
As I write, I’m listening to an album called, “One Night Lonely.” Mary Chapin Carpenter did a live streaming show from Wolf Trap. There was no audience except remotely. It’s her and her guitars. She doesn’t talk, but she plays for two hours.
She’s doing the same thing that she did when I rediscovered her when she was playing songs from home.
Like James Taylor, she’s doing what she did back then, bringing me peace. We could all use a little bit of peace just about now, right?
T
his picture is about seeing. For sure, the yellow caught my attention. But, the details took some seeing. Or, luck. Photographers luck.
You make that kind of luck by being there. By being present. By focusing. And, by emptying your mind for just a little while.
I have a routine to do that. I’d tell you about it, but you may want do it differently. There is no one way. There is no right way. There is no wrong way.
That’s good.
We’d get bored if we did things the same way as other people.
So don’t.
I see so many derivative pictures on all social media. There is a saying among new photographers, “Fake it until you make it.”
That’s a saying from AA for newly sober people who are struggling to do what sober people do until they understand it.
It applies there. It shouldn’t apply to someone making pictures.
Stop copying. Stop faking. Start experimenting. Start being you.
You’ll go farther, faster.
STORYTELLER 
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