On Photography
And the Art of Paying Attention
Once upon a time I wanted to be a professional photographer. I’m not sure exactly what kind I imagined I might be…. but I think I envisioned something more on the artsy side (think: Ansel Adams, Dorthea Lange, Diane Arbus, Lewis Hine) than commercial photographer available for hire. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) my ambitions took a serious hit when Grandpa George informed me that photography was nice, but that it wasn’t real art. His father (my great-grandfather, Moshe Rynecki…about whom I wrote a book and made a film) had been a painter. A pretty darn good one and
as far as my Grandpa George was concerned, painting was the pinnacle of the art world. Photography….meh….not so much.
While Grandpa’s words didn’t exactly put the kibosh on my interest in photography, they definitely dampened my enthusiasm.
Dad didn’t seem to care or take his father’s opinion into account as he continued to gift me several cameras (and lots of rolls of film) over the years. I continued taking photographs of family, friends, and random things I saw in my everyday life. Once Dad and I worked together on a high school photography art assignment in which I documented modes of transportation in San Francisco.
My Dad wasn’t exactly a photography mentor, nor was he a professional photographer, but he took thousands of photographs throughout his career. I have boxes full of his photographs documenting
shipwrecks and marine salvage jobs on waterways around the world. I even made a video about it (click play on the above YouTube piece!).
For a long time I called myself a hobby photographer. That used to hold some meaning when you had a 35mm SLR or even a DSLR camera in your closet that you pulled out to document important family events and holidays. Nowadays everyone with a mobile phone and a built in camera is a hobby photographer.
I haven’t used my bulky film cameras in eons. My last photography class was in 1993 (yes, the last century because I really am that old) in Florence, Italy. I spent a summer studying Italian and photography. My favorite subject: portraits. Especially of everyday people doing everyday things…kids on swings, truck drivers at the train station, people swimming along the banks of the Arno river.
I still like the idea of making portraits, but I don’t do it very often anymore. In part because I get nervous about asking people if I can take their photo. Revealing something poetic about a person in a single frame…. well, there’s a whole art to that [I wrote about asking subjects to jump in a prior post] and there’s so much to get wrong….the light, the angle, the composition (do you just photograph their face? Or do you include their shoulders? Or is what they’re wearing somehow important to include?).
I don’t haul my SLR or DSLR out of the closet too much anymore, but I love the simplicity of pulling out my phone and thinking just about the place. It allows me to focus less on making the subject feel comfortable lets me selfishly explore what I find creatively exciting and artistically worthy.
The truth is that I’m probably the zillionth person to take a photo like the one below…. perched high above San Francisco at Twin Peaks, looking down Market Street and spotting the Ferry Building
peeking out at the water’s edge. Honestly, I don’t really care. I photograph what I like, and that brings me joy. Which is why my phone camera is just as likely to include cat photos, selfies, urban landscapes,
and trees. I seem to especially have a thing for trees. I used to think that was weird…. but then I read Amy Stewart’s The Tree Collectors… and now I get it…I’m a collector of tree photographs. But maybe that’s an entire topic for a different post.
Anyway, I may never be the kind of photographer I once imagined, and I’ve long since concluded that my grandfather was wrong… photography is its own kind of real art (sorry grandpa, we will have to agree to disagree!). I’m not a professional photographer, but so what? Photography gives me the tools I need to notice and appreciate the geometry of Market Street, the elegant majesty of trees, and the ordinary moments of everyday life. And these days, that’s more than enough for me.
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That’s it! Thanks for reading this week’s post.
What’s on your camera roll?
Endnotes
Join me on Instagram! I post mini-book reviews, artsy photos, short videos, helpful bits of ADHD insight, and select pieces of shipping and maritime news.
You can also find me on Threads and BlueSky.
That Sinking Feeling: Adventures in ADHD and Ship Salvage is streaming wherever you get your podcasts. Here is it is on Apple:
You can find my book, Chasing Portraits: A Great Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy in libraries all over the world! The book is officially, as they say: Out of Print.
Use my contact form to let me know you’d like to buy a copy (or more!). I’ll email you payment options once you send your initial request. $20/book. I can ship via media mail anywhere in the U.S.
The Chasing Portraits documentary film is streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Kanopy, and OvidTV. You can also buy the DVD directly from distributor First Run Features.
If you’re looking for other documentaries, narrative films, or TV shows featuring the subject of Holocaust era looted art… I’ve got a list for that!
In addition to this newsletter, I have one called Authors Answer. I started it as a blog in 2020 to give authors a place to wax eloquent about their lives off the written page. Learn more about it by visiting the Authors Answer Substack website page.