|
Stocking the Pond - One Photographer’s Need for Sabbatical
by: Julie Harris
“Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast—you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.” Eddie Cantor
I just rewound my 5th roll of 3200 Ilford black and white film and set my camera down on the tiny round table outside of Chez Papa to take a pot de vin. I’ve wrapped the scarf that I just bought around my neck another time and am feeling the mist of rain blow in waves across my face. The cold stings but is refreshing and I love the color it makes my cheeks.
The old French man crossing the street in front of me has just been struck by something in the morning paper and has torn it in half, crumpled it in his hands and thrown it on the ground in disgust. I’m smiling at this gesture. And ready for a cigarette. There’s another man coming around the corner whistling. I don’t recognize the tune… Three months ago, I wouldn’t have noticed any of this—I wouldn’t have even taken time out for a pot de vin, or a coffee, for that matter. But I’m in Paris and am here for a creative “transfusion”. I’m here on sabbatical.
 
Rewind four months—the hardest few of months of my life and career. Things simply started to unravel around me. My relationships with my husband, family and friends were being neglected and feeling overwhelming. I didn’t have the energy and time to devote to them (or myself). My friends were wondering what had happened to me as I would disappear into a world that revolved entirely around my work. I even started to question my identity as a photographer—thinking that I was worthless creatively. I became sullen, depressed and even hostile. I was like a cornered animal, snarling at my husband and those close to me to leave me alone and stop making “unreasonable demands” (like feeding the dogs or picking up a friend from the airport). I didn’t realize at the time that it was I who was making unreasonable demands. I thought that I could thrive as a photographer and businesswoman without giving myself what I needed to do so. What I needed was time and space and a grounded sense of self. It was this insanity that forced me to take a sabbatical. And because of this, I’m eternally grateful for those tumultuous months.
A sabbatical by definition is a period of time in which you are free from work or duty. It’s an ancient biblical tradition—the day of rest. For me, a sabbatical is a necessary retreat from ordinary life. It gives me clarity and calm as it allows me to step back from my hectic life—the emotions, the interactions, the demands. As artists (especially wedding photographers), we take ourselves too seriously. We get caught up in an identity role and lose the freedom to create and contribute. We spend way too many hours checking other photographer’s blogs, or researching the latest and greatest “totally rad actions”. We become obsessed with this identity and everything associated with it—needing to be as good or better than “so and so” or to have a perfect histogram on every image, etc. etc. When we remove ourselves from this identity through sabbatical, we can re-write the way we live and work. We can again be creative, purely creative. On sabbatical, we heal with time and solitude. We learn to pay attention to our “artist child”; we play and remember the purity of who we are at the core. On sabbatical, we learn to live in the present. Sabbatical isn’t a luxury: it’s a necessity for artists.
Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, says this: “Art is an image-using system. In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir is ideally like a well-stocked trout pond. We’ve got big fish, little fish, fat fish, skinny fish---an abundance of artistic fish to fry. As artists we must realize that we have to maintain this artistic eco-system. If we don’t give some attention to upkeep, our well is apt to become depleted, stagnant or blocked. Any extended period or piece of work draws heavily on our artistic well. Over-tapping the well, like over-fishing the pond, leaves us with diminished resources. We fish in vain for the images we require. Our work dries up and we wonder why, ‘just when it was going so well.’ The truth is that work can dry up because it is going so well.” As photographers, our wells are drawn on heavily by the emotional energy we have to dole out to our clients. We can’t just show up and be. We have to engage, we have to notice details, we have to constantly be on the lookout for that “moment’, and be emotionally in tune with our subjects. We have to, even in chaos, put on a smile and remain calm in order to put our subjects at ease. Our well, at the end of a busy wedding season, is most likely empty and cracked dry. This emotional well can only be replenished through solitude. An artist must have down time, time to do nothing. Withdrawal is necessary; sabbatical offers this.
My favorite thing to do here in Paris is to take the barge river trip down the Seine. I bring a bottle of wine in my purse and just watch the city go by. It may seem cliché or a simple thing to do, but if offers me tranquility. Thomas Moore says: “To the human soul, it is important to get out of the busy life, to be dissuaded from familiar activities and to step outside the paradigm that has become habitual and taken for granted.” On the river barge, I don’t have to talk to anybody; I don’t have to weave through people on the street. I can simply stand there, let the wind hit my face, or my back and take it all in. I’m away from the busy life here. I’m removed from the norms and routines of my life in Denver. Ask anybody that has seen me on these trips. I become a child—I get a grin on my face and simply beam. It’s like I used to get when my parents would take us to the fair when I was young. It just does something for my soul and I become innocent; purely who I am at my core. Maybe it’s the water, maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s just the ritual of taking my inner “artist child” on a date. This is sabbatical. It can be a long country walk, a solo trip to your favorite book store, visiting a strange church to listen to Gregorian chants, making a lavish meal and savoring all the colors, the textures, the aromas. Sabbatical can be as simple as sitting at a riverbank and watching the way water organically moves in constant motion. It could be hopscotch. The point is a sabbatical gets us in touch with the purity of who we are. If we can get in touch with this through solitude and rest, through play and through nurturing our inner desires, we can spend our entire lives in the art of reconnecting with our own truth—our own light and our own voice—creatively!
I’ve been here in Paris for just five weeks but this sabbatical has already awakened a freedom in me that has for so long been buried. It only took me about a week here to stop trying so hard—to stop presuming what kind of images I should make, or what shot would get me praise on my blog. During this simple period of relaxation after a grueling season, I have allowed my creative mind to take over and am producing work from my awakened spirit, free of demands and free of expectations. It’s actually easier for me today in Paris to photograph and write than it is for me not to. I’m savoring the surrender to the end result and am discovering the joy of just being present. This process, not the product of my art, has been the gift of my sabbatical in Paris. Take a sabbatical, all you photographers! Do what you want! It’s about detaching from the dreaded “identity” and giving yourself the time to awaken to a life in alignment with your heart. It’s about stocking the pond and “dancing to the music that makes your heart sing”.
See more of Julie's travel photography on photography blog.
DISCLAIMER : The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent the views of photographik or any member of the photographik organization.
|
