The World Outside My Life

Today is a clear sunny winters day and I am preparing to venture out to split wood, feed horses, treat a sick barn cat and otherwise tend to the none photographic things in my life. My dogs are waiting patiently in the kitchen, next to the wood stove, as usual and for a moment, I am left to contemplate the world beyond my life's doorstep. It could prove a daunting process, were I to let it. I recently parted company with a lady I had been close to, let a possible assignment to New Mexico slip by, without a second glance and spent two days in bed with either the flu, or food poisoning, I am not certain of which and so my life suddenly slowed down and became a tad introspective. Today, it has resumed it's normal patterns, but with a nudge to see beyond myself and my day to day existence. It is not something I find myself indulging in of late and that is troublesome.

At one time, I spent a lot of time thinking outside my life. It kept me focused and a bit sane and very grounded. Today, I find that not to be the case and not to my benefit either. When one works in the lives and events, of others, as so many photojournalists do, one realizes, all to clearly, just how basically well off one actually is. For the moment,or the hour, one may live in a world of discomfort,or upheaval,or even life and death struggle, but at the end of it all, one can and does return to a more comfortable place. Even if the particular assignment is not in war torn dishevelment, but rather, simply some distant tourist trap, the problems are still not really yours and will all, physically, go away once one returns home. One may dwell on them from afar and resolve to try and better the situation, but one no longer has to live them,day to day. Nevertheless, the act of dealing with them and the people whose lives, they are a daily part of,brings one to better appreciate their own life,no matter how troubled it seems from the inside. It allows you to see the forest for the trees,for a time.

Many things drive the photojournalist to venture outside their comfort zone and into the worlds of others,both less fortunate and very, much more fortunate than they. The list of reasons is endless and as varied as the individual photographers, but it is these motivators which separate the photojournalist from many of the rest of society. This is not to say that photojournalists ,somehow, have some special insight into the world that no one else can,or does. But rather, serves to highlight the simple fact that,as a group, we are different, from most of our brethren, in the way that we approach that world. Whether it is a better way or a lesser way, is not really the point. What is the point is that it is a way that enables us to function, in our potentially chaotic field, without becoming mired in the lives and events we document, while helping us to remain grounded in our own lives. Assuming that we allow it to happen, this approach, if you will,gives us the detachment we need to be able to do what we do, while at the same time allowing us to better see our own lives with a clearer perspective. Seeing your own existence through the lives of others illuminates the benefits and the blessings of that existence all the more clearly.And speaking of clearly, I clearly need to get out there and tend to my chores.