I didn’t mean to stop making pictures. But somewhere along the way, I did.
Strange. Considering how I used to carry a camera everywhere. I built a life around photographs. I was a photojournalist at the local paper for years. I started a photo club. Co-founded an art gallery. To some, it looked like I’d made it. Or, at least reached a place others hoped to get to.
But life shifts. It knocks you sideways. When you stop making images, the absence gets loud. If you’re lucky, eventually, you try again.
For the past few years, my friends and I have been working to turn our gallery into a full-fledged art center. Small town. Rural county. What are we thinking?
In the beginning, we thought we could make things better. And somehow, we are.
There was no staff in the beginning. Just a lot of caffeine and stubborn energy. Now we have one paid position, and she still doesn’t get what she deserves.
We run on fumes and grit. Too many late nights. Too many Google Docs. Always figuring it out as we go. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re creating a new model based on the needs of our small community.
I stopped taking pictures somewhere in that blur between making placards and chasing down artist bios. I made space for others, but none for myself. It started during the pandemic. The nonprofit gave me purpose, but I drifted.
Last year, I stepped back into the leadership role for the photo club I started a decade ago. I thought I was done, and hoped stepping back in would help. And for a little while, it did. But over time, it turned into something else, a social outlet for mostly retired folks. That’s fine, but it wasn’t what I needed. I began to feel like a guest in something I’d built. Something I poured myself into, but never quite got back. Then my life fell apart, and I was needed elsewhere and had to step away again.
There’s a specific kind of loneliness in feeling unseen inside something you created.
Today I drove up a familiar road I hadn’t traveled in years. I bought my new car a few years ago, and I don’t think I’ve driven that stretch since.
I used to come here to think. To photograph a tree that still stands off the shoulder. Still standing. Still growing. Like me, I guess.
This time, I brought coffee, my camera, and my journal. Hoping to find whatever part of me used to feel alive doing this.
I wrote about what I want: Less stress. More art. To feel awake behind the lens. To make work that feels like mine, even if no one else sees it.
I stayed in the car while the coffee cooled. Sipping. The clouds thickened. A cold drift moved through the trees. It felt like it would rain, so I headed home and heated the coffee in the microwave.
I feel hopeful again. I want to see the world through the lens and feel like myself.
It’s funny how something so familiar can feel new again. Like running into an old friend and realizing there’s still more to say.
Because I miss it.
And because I still like the way sunlight hits a garage door at 4:00 p.m.