It’s been almost a month since I posted anything here. And in all honesty I have not shot much at all throughout January. Looking back through my photo catalog it looks like I’ve taken my camera out a grand total of three times throughout the whole month. As soon as the snow showed up with any regularity my focus shifted to my primary wintertime love, cross country skiing. But even without the distraction of skiing I have always struggled immensely to shoot in the winter. I’m sure there is some complex nexus of forces at work for this but from an experiential standpoint I just don’t find myself the inspired or motivated to get out and shoot in the winter months. It’s not that I don’t find it beautiful, I obviously do. There is a profound beauty in the winter environment. But for some reason I struggle to find the inspiration and the urge to translate those experiences in to imagery that I find interesting or compelling.
I also struggle with this struggle itself, so to speak. This is undoubtedly some kind of internalized spirit of capitalist productionism, the idea that we only have value insofar as we are productive. A lack of productivity then entails guilt, self criticism, etc etc.. This is clearly madness, a sickness of a sick world, and while I rationally understand that the self-imposed urge to maintain some standard of Herculean productivity while around me the world slumbers, I still struggle with exorcising that deeply internalized productionist ideology. Skiing helps, maybe I’ll just ski more. That’s always a good idea.
The images included in this post were created on two separate outings. One shooting the Leica M4-2 with the TTA 28mm and a roll of Kentmere 100 pushed to 400, developed in Rodinal. The other outing was shooting the Leica M262 and the venerable little Voigtlander 40mm Heliar
