Creative: Can I?

Can I make something interesting? I normally photograph people, so instead I decided to drive to a dying lake in the middle of winter and see if I could make something interesting. It didn’t matter that it was t-shirt weather, and I was sweating. I did talk to people, but purposely didn’t ask for portraits. No, on this day, it was all about what was outside my comfort zone. Landscape, or “lakescapes,” and whatever else felt unnatural. Okay, I snuck in one human, from a distance, but this doesn’t count.

No engagement, no talk, no connection, not my style.

The real reason I went is that I needed to get out. My upcoming schedule is a bit crazy, even for me. Consequently, I need to plan weeks and months in advance. So what might be a normal holiday Monday for some is a day of planning for me. Time goes SO fast. You think you have time, and suddenly deliverables are due, and your flight is boarding. The “open” month you thought you had is filled, and now the pressure mounts.

So, that’s why I go. To break the cycle and force myself into something unnatural. There was a guy with tats and a handlebar mustache. He looked like he had scars and knew how to handle himself. His lifted, maroon Chevy had 35s and custom exhaust. His female companion was in a skimpy black number. They made quite a pair, and would have said “Yes.” But I said, “No, not today.” Today is all about rocks and twigs and reflections. Good God. What’s happening to me? Can I make something? Book layouts like dust particles drift through my mind.

I always admired the people who could shoot anything. Newspaper snappers never get credit. Jacks of all trades, masters of many. Drop them in like firefighters to put out those photographic flames. The light shifts from warm to cool to cold. The wintering eagles are nowhere to be seen. I walk cracked Earth, pulled back like lips over rotting teeth. The land is screaming for something to cure the parch. Just a drop, that’s all I need. Wind arrives and erases the lake surface like an Etch-a-Sketch. You had your time, your moment, now move along. I start the van and watch as a coyote skips along the rockface, curious but wary.