The Turn Of A Decade
January 1st, 2010
I’m not much for the whole year end reflection/year in review kind of stuff. But, since this day marks the start of a new decade it seemed to me worth noting. The past decade has been a rough one in many ways that I really don’t need to recount here. But I have mixed feelings about the past ten years because for me personally it has been a very good decade.
I’m in my sixth decade on this strange planet and much that has been good in my life has happened in this past one.
It was May of 2002 when I made a trip to Maine and took the photo at the top of this post. That was the day I realized that I needed to be photographing the nude in nature. I started working professionally as a photographer in 1968. But, in the past eight years I have produced the vast majority of the photographs that I care about…the ones that seem to be the reason I am a photographer. It started the day I made that photo above.
Incidentally, that photo was taken with a 3 megapixel camera that cost $1000. It was recorded on a 128 Meg (not Gig) card that cost $300. I still have that card somewhere, but wouldn’t even consider trying to shoot with it…it would only hold a few photos. And I have my new 10 mp S90 in my pocket to shoot snaps…it cost much less than half what that old camera (which I also still have…I seldom part with my cameras) cost.
There are lots of photos I care about from the earlier years of my life, of course, but my “body of work” really began the day I took this photo.
Another major event this past decade was being able to retire from my day job and concentrate full-time on photography for the first time in many years. I never really stopped being a photographer for very long over those years, but thanks to the Peter Principle I found myself doing other things as my primary job for quite a few years. That made it possible to concentrate on photographing just what I wanted to photograph while also being able to support a family and eventually reach that retirement milestone. So that was all good, at least from the perspective at this end of that journey.
I also have to mention that the past decade made me a grandfather. I’m pretty happy about that new role for myself too.
So, despite all the tragedies, wars, global warming, recession, the “oughts” were pretty good to me. But that doesn’t stop me from hoping the “teens” will be a much better decade for the world. And I also hope that it will be another fine decade of productivity for me as a photographer…and that I’ll get to learn all about being a grandfather.
As the new decade begins I hope you can find the good in the past ten years and I wish you all the best in the coming ten and beyond.
2 Responses to “The Turn Of A Decade”
1Shadowscapestudio
January 1st, 2010 @ 11:24 pm
I have a 128 meg card wedged under one foot of the washing machine to level it out. There are all kinds of things you can use them for. They make dandy flash drives for giving a handful of web ready jpeg images to the models (provided they have a card reader). I use them to store documents on that I may need from time to time and throw them in the safety deposit box.
Welcome to 2020, my friend.
2D.L. Wood
January 3rd, 2010 @ 1:50 am
I got the S90 in late October and really like it. Nice to have a quality point and shoot when I don't want to drag the 50d out.
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