Adventure: This is it.

This is it. This is my happy place. As you can see in the image, I’m somewhere in my thoughts. As you get older, you realize you need to stop and appreciate your immediate surroundings. You predict the future, but there is no way to be sure, so you need to stop and take notice. Working as a photographer can make this more difficult because you always have the next photograph.

I’m sporting a fancy two-gun rig. Always there, always thirsty. If you aren’t careful, this will consume you. I know it has for me, but I’ve vowed to be better, more well-rounded. More interesting perhaps. I’m also taking note of how privileged I am to be squatting in a place I’d wanted to visit my entire life. I was scouting but had no massive agenda, shot-list, or master plan assuring I would walk away with any particular take. I was there to observe and react.

The best part of being a photographer is being in the field.

It’s not even close. Get published, get a book deal, get a show. Post to your networks. Okay, got it. Nah, get me back out there. Let me get the world on me once again. Dust, smoke, rain, wind, thorns in my socks. During the winter, I drive with my windows open so I can smell the burning of piñon and sage. You can read a hundred books about “being in the now.” You can think about it. Doing it is another matter. I’ve failed countless times. Maybe being in the now is selfish. Maybe. Maybe that’s what it takes, but the being selfish part works out for the better in the end. The better for all of us because it is the time we make our best, most impactful work.

I’m old enough to know life before the screen. A far more physical life. Gen Z is the first generation to be less cognitively capable than their parents. Denmark, of course, has a plan, but the rest of us are right in the middle of this little meltdown. Maybe we do need Greenland? Speaking of Greenland, what a great place to get outside. Deep reading. Deep learning. Deep inspection. Core samples of the soul. (Cheesy alert.)

What happens when we get into the field? Reduced amygdala activity (less fear/anxiety), increased serotonin and vitamin D from sunlight, lowered cortisol levels, and increased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex. I have no idea what any of this means, but it sounds smart and kinda positive, so I’m thinking it’s a good thing. Also, being outside boosts our creativity and improves our problem-solving, which probably ties back to basic survival. Leave the cave, run into a problem, solve the problem, or die.

When you forecast the year, it’s clear there are few opportunities for fieldwork. (Depending on what you do.) Even with lots of travel, it doesn’t mean you will have field time. The definition of field time can vary from person to person, but for me, it’s not just about being somewhere. It’s about being somewhere with the time to consider where you are, and what it means to be there. You can do this at the post office, which I totally advise, because the post office can be a real challenge, but there is something different about being abroad. Maybe it’s the unexpected, exposure, discomfort, thrill, or sensory overload. There is a reason why people have a difficult time explaining trips like this. “Where do I start?” they will say. “Oh, it was just, just oh, I don’t know.” I once had a Zippo lighter from the Vietnam era. On one side, it said, “Dak To,” and on the other, it said, “If you weren’t there, then fuck you.” This is a bit harsh, but the general idea applies.

This is why we secure our memories, and this is why we MAKE STUFF. Paint, write, photograph, make journals, and lay out books. It’s why we try to make sense of things, so that we can translate to others, and ourselves when the need arises. It’s the balance we strive for. The lack of restriction, the freedom to wander both mentally and physically, while seeking a path forward. Maybe it’s about the balance between internal and external. For me, and I can only speak for myself, the internal aspect FAR outweighs the external, but I realize I might be in the minority now when so many lust nothing more than the real-time share.

Not me. I let things percolate.

First, I need to cull the herd. The faces of photo-editors rushing back from the ancient past, their threats and warnings–so alarming at the time–but so painfully true–rising in a merciless frontal attack on my little rectangles. No, no, no, no, maybe. 1654 to 145 to 35 to some final trivial number. And then I begin to place them in order. On a trip like this, with no single through line, the order can vary based on mood, design, timing, or subject matter. There is no right and wrong. I blend the unblendable because I know I have the text to carry me through. I embellish. I fabricate, and most importantly, I sit quietly and let my mind remember the details I never noticed at the time.

I then begin to stack and layer. I do not overthink. I do not think of anyone else, not even those in the images. It’s just me. Who else has these thoughts and ideas? Who else would put things together in this order? Who else would have made these images? Now my narrative begins to emerge. Again, it does not take much. Not only do I not need a book of a hundred images, nor does the world, unless the story has never been read before. (And even then, I’d cull to thirty pictures max. Thirty pictures could be a seventy-page book.) I’m looking for ONE spread that does its duty. A spread that arcs across the sky, bone blade searching for a target, slicing in cleanly at impact. Leaving the recipient saying, “What is THAT protruding from my chest?” “That, oh that, that’s a spread from Patagonia, from my journal.”

Now I have them. Now I have the viewer who is used to ingesting the undigestible great deluge funnel of the modern world. A viscous flow increasing in girth with each passing moment. But now I’ve clogged the drain, and the water is beginning to overflow the tub. Now I control the current; addition by subtraction. Here, this and only this, is what I want you to see. You can’t look away. Those glowing orbs reflected by the blackness and chicken scratch. Penetrating. Yes, I’m looking at YOU.