Will he get his mojo back?
No secret that lately I’ve been unable to find that groove all photographers look for. I do find photos, and they’re nice enough, and isn’t that nice. But there isn’t any pizzazz, no panache, no hot stuff. I do, as it happens, have a few flaming swords I’m trying to juggle in my personal life, which is not what this blog is about, and it would be easy to say, oh! La-di-da, that’s it! But it isn’t, and I know it. Malaise and mental drift are what I usually can cure with a good day out on the trail, somewhere, and it really isn’t right to accuse the cure of being the problem, if you follow my disjointed verbal drift. I dunno, really. Writers hit writers block. I’ve been trying to untie a tangle of photo block. I have been getting out for the photo discovery walks nearly every day, and the exercise feels great, but I’m tangled like an overstock at the Greek myth outlet mall: Sisyphus is there, rolling my old carcass up a hill with a tripod, with Diogenes trying to get Prometheus to provide the perfect light on the sword of Damocles to cut the Gordian Knot while I try to frame up the composition, but right beside me I hear Diana blasting away at waterfowl with a goddess-size shotgun, and taunting me with her amazing focal length and f-stop. She is, after all, a goddess.
I tell you straight, my friends, there are times when creativity and inspiration are like the happy dreams that evaporate when you are most enjoying them and the phone rings.
Still and all. I’m out there, scouting, seeking, searching, exploring, hiking, (cussing a bit), looking, working at finding that special patch of light. Just light. Just that wonderful, magical, soul-lifting light. That, dear friends, is what we do. We seek the light. To see that special light, and thus to be enlightened. We carry a camera, and that is what cameras do: they capture light. If the light is right, good photo; if it isn’t, not. End of story, full stop.
Hang with me awhile yet, ye loyal viewers. The malaise, the malady, the mental drift, will pass. Moods, emotional states, mental blocks, they always pass. Oh, and to pre-empt anybody who might think I have a medical or physical problem, please don’t think that. Truly, I’m fine. Really. I have no medical problems. I’m just in a slump, in a funk, in the soup, behind the eight ball, over a barrel, under the gun, up a creek, down in the dumps, around the bend, and beyond the pale, creatively, artistically, mentally, whateverly brothers. I’m fine. And I know my mojo is out there, waiting for me to find it. I’ll track the slippery little sucker down and I'll get it back. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow-ish.