after photo sobriety

I started this year desperately needing a reset. Gearing up for a 90-day break from making any photos, a photo sobriety, I wanted to see clearly again, to feel a crystalized creative drive, to not be bound to the tracks of tired tendencies.

Not taking any photos was hard. At first, it was invigorating - I drew little things, my attention was taut with everything my mind wanted me to remember. I started on my birthday, on vacation, in Paris. So my attention was turned on. Revved. This engine dulled - with time and return to routine of everyday life. I still took little notes, but my outward curiosity and observation of the world petered.

I started some slow drawings, working from photo archives, but I didn’t feel newly awakened to much.

I felt my creativity depress, like without a lens to look through, my eyes stopped looking. I read Barthes. I yearned. I went through heartbreak and felt grateful to not have visual evidence of them falling out of love with me. Because of that break up, I really disengaged in some visual mediums (Instagram) and overly relied on others (Tiktok). All felt like types of poison I was addicted to, in various stages of relying on as a crutch and breaking away from.

On one of the rainiest days of the year I took hours of trains to my friend’s in deep Queens and found myself across from her with the realization: the answer is not no photography, it is more photography, it is more photographing with no purpose, its being in flow in practice. The answer to a clearer vision wasn’t just wiping the slate, it was making a larger slate, making more space. I didn’t need to separate the act of making photographs from the mundane, but make it more integrated with my way of being. This felt like clear and sturdy goal. A tangible thing to work toward.

A missive to take more photographs means less pressure to make or seek out meaning in any individual image. It opens up more of a process, feeling out meaning through an integrated practice. An evolving puzzle instead of a smattering of pieces. Make more and worry about it later.

I can’t say I’ve found myself to any epiphanies through the photos I made this year, but after my 90 days of sobriety, I picked up the camera again and again. I made some photos I really love, and some ideas are starting to sketch out. I want to see how they might take shape.

I think the real work is cutting out the rest of the noise - whether that be internal brain grooves of anxiety, avoidance, dissociation, self doubt or externalized distractions that I’m addicted to - all the other poison. Perhaps it shouldn’t be so black and white, all or none, but balanced. Maybe this next year I will find the gray. I’m going to keep looking. Whatever keeps me looking.