Postcards from Kenya

My work in Kenya didn’t go as planned. Story of my life, right? But I’m not referring to the fact that my first two days in Kenya were spent in bed in a tent in the bush, with an IV fluid and antibiotic drip, trying to get a fever down. I’m not referring to the fact that unseasonable rains changed everything, including the presence (scarce!) of animals that we were there to photograph. I don’t even mean the fact that one of my cameras kept malfunctioning at the worst of times. Like the one single cheetah sighting we had, where I raised my camera and…nothing. No focus, no aperture, just the obvious signs that camera and lens weren’t talking to each other.

Nope. I don’t mean those. I’ve come to somewhat expect those detours. My creative journey seems inevitably bound to the unexpected. It’s like my muse wants to make sure I can bounce back from the distractions before she gets serious about getting down to work. I can’t be the only one.

So, no. Kenya didn’t go at all to plan. It went wildly off course and in that unexpected new mental territory under the sign that says, “Well, shit. Now what?” I found answers I didn’t know I was looking for. A glimmer of something new. I found the kind of flow that comes when you bite down on a challenge and see where it leads. I found the kind of flow that only comes when you realize you care deeply about something, that you’re truly excited by something and you chase it, even when all you’ve got are little hints it might work.

So yes, the animals were harder to find this year. The rains were partly to blame. Whatever it was, the savannah all felt very…lonely. And to begin with, I felt uninspired—though that probably had more to do with my lingering sickness and a head that felt a little foggy. I didn’t have the strength to be clever, to really work the scenes the way I often do to look for the strongest compositions. So I started playing with what I had: a feeling of loneliness (where were all the animals?), often expressed by just one single animal on the savannah, placed centrally in the frame, shot almost entirely with my 24-105 lens. In development, I pulled the colours a little towards a storybook palette, a little fantastic, perhaps surreal. I was just playing, trying to tease out a feeling that was not so much “Where the Wild Things Are” as much as “Where Are the Wild Things?” As I kept at it, I started identifying a feeling of longing in the photographs I was making.

Doubt. I’ve never doubted my process (or the results) as much as I did last month. It seems like doubt is never far from our best work. I’m beginning to think that doubt has a way of making our work stronger. Not if we only doubt. Not if we let the doubt paralyze us. But if we let the doubt be a question, a challenge to which we rise, I think it nudges us forward in necessary ways. Helpful ways. Speaking for myself, if I doubt myself or the work I’m making, I tend to work it harder. To rework it more often. To refine it with greater rigour. My doubts don’t make me give up; they keep me honest and they keep me at it until the hope I see in the work itself is stronger than whatever lingering doubts remain.

But there’s something more. Doubts can also lead to doubling our efforts in unproductive directions. When we question whether the choices and decisions we’re making are “the right ones,” we spend a lot of creative energy speculating about what can’t yet be known. We stall. We end up choosing no direction at all. No risk.

I wonder if there’s a better way. Instead of worrying so much about making the “right” decisions before we pour ourselves into the work, what freedom would we find (and how much stronger might our work be?) if we instead put that energy into making the decisions right with our work. Take a risk, make a choice, and then keep working it until that choice feels right.

What I mean is look for the glimmer and chase it. See where it leads. Work it until it feels right. Pick a direction and follow the thread. Especially if the early efforts make you feel something, that bright spark of recognition when what you’ve made feels very much like yours, even though you’ve never seen it before. Even if it’s different (hell, especially if it’s different) and you worry it’s somewhat outside the usual box of your vision or voice. Make the decision, then work it until it feels right, like the work is truly yours. Let the doubt push you there!

I have no idea where this new work is going. But it thrills me. Is it good? Don’t ask me. That’s not a question I worry about. But it does feel like mine. And it’s throwing off sparks for me, and I’m hoping something catches fire, if only in my heart and imagination. When that happens, it’s all so much better than whatever else I had planned.

Thanks to all of you who checked in on me while I was gone. Sorry I was so quiet for so long. Kenya was my first big trip with my prosthetic leg and it all felt kind of daunting. In the end, despite the creative challenges, the trip went really well. I’m approaching nine months as an amputee and every day feels like progress. Next up is a week off the west coast of Vancouver Island photographing the spectacle of the herring spawn (think bears, wolves, otters, sea lions, and eagles coming together for a big party), and not long after that, I’ve got two expeditions to photograph coastal wolves. Then it’s bears in the Khutzeymateen, a trip to the Arctic Ocean as autumn comes to the tundra, more grizzly bears as the salmon start to run, a trip to Zimbabwe and South Africa, and just like that, another year is gone. It’ll go quickly, but it’ll be filled with wonder. I hope you’ll join me along the way.

For the Love of the Photograph,
David