Wall and Yellow Posts

This shot comes from a shoot I did on January 3rd.  I don't feel I got anything especially wonderful, but this will do...

Concrete Wall and Chainlink Fence 1

I don't know if I like this image because it creates an interesting mood or if it is because of the interplay of lines.  I'm beginning to suspect that the images I have shot that I like best are the ones that give away the least meaning.

Insignificant Choices

At the core of “Revolutionary Road” is the idea that people can lead greater lives if they take the right chance. Central to the story is the wife's suggestion that she and her husband dump their current, conventional lives and move to Paris so that her husband can find what really matters to him. They start to make plans but then a minor success at work leads the husband to resist the change. The film is an illustration of lives lead in perhaps not entirely quiet desperation.

My life has not gone as I intended it to twenty-five years ago. I never became the film maker I planned to be. I tried a bit of writing but not being a verbal person, found the work too emotionally exhausting to be a feasible career. In much the same way, I find personal interactions with strangers equally challenging which limited what I felt capable of doing in a commercial photography. I have found myself accidentally slipping into a career which lacks the grandeur I had hoped for, but does provide for my love of technical challenges. It's not everything I have wanted, but it's better than a lot of people get.

About twelve years ago I briefly considered moving to New York to pursue a more vibrant career. The thought of moving away from my friends and family terrified me and I quickly set aside the idea. Was this cowardice or pragmatism? Am I justifying my decisions when I feel with a strong conviction that no matter where I go, I will still be me? If it is not within me to live an exciting life in Los Angeles, is it really believable that things would be different in New York?

The life you have is the life you carry with you. There are circumstances that modify the specific details of how you live your life, but you will make the same choices in Paris or New York as you would in Los Angeles. While there are people whose lives are torn away from them and they may justifiably be angry, those of us above the poverty line in the United States are wealthy and privileged: we have to option of making choices.

I suppose what really is at issue is the question of would you rise to the challenge if you took the leap into a dangerous unknown? And can you ONLY rise to the challenge in the face of danger? Can you rise to the same challenge despite peace and prosperity? Perhaps that is the more difficult challenge; to succeed at something when your life does NOT depend upon it.

So given that we have the misfortune to have more than we need, to lack real life threatening challenges, how do we still make our lives exciting and grand? How can we live lives where we cannot predict what will come tomorrow and we cannot be certain of the plot of our own stories? Running away provides a brief unpredictability and gives excitement for a while, but as we grow accustomed to the new environment, we find we still make the same choices and lead essentially the same lives.

Grand decisions appear difficult. The choice to let go of everything you have and move to Paris appears to be a harder decision than to decide will you go out and try to make a good photograph today or will you drink a beer and relax. In reality they are equal: it is simply a matter of choosing one side or another. The choice itself requires little effort. What requires a great deal of effort is to live your life making a hundred good choices a day. It is the small choices you make that define your life. The grand choices are not insignificant, but they are far less significant than the daily accumulation of infinitesimal decisions.

The really difficult choice; the hard work of life, is to keep making good choices in the smallest of moments. In examining one's own life and wanting change, the difficult choice is not about a single momentous change, but of small, seemingly insignificant changes. Knowing this, the frightening question I have to ask myself is “will I make the better choice a hundred times a day?”

Gas Station Awning