What do we shoot when there is nothing to shoot? Now, do not get me wrong, because I am definitely from the camp of thought that there is always something to shoot, just like I do not feel like we ever need to be bored (there is always something to think about).
Sometimes, still, we are stuck. Our imaginations can still run, and there is still much to shoot, but maybe not what we want or need to be shooting.
The example I give you is me right now. I try to focus on people; that is what I want to shoot and where I place most of my emphasis. Number one, my wife and I are in SmallTown, America, and Americans have become increasingly private. It is not so much that we cannot take photos of them because they would be offended and more because they move from home to car to job to car to home…and then just watch TV. They barely breathe outside air; how do you catch them in the open?
I could even work with that, really. There are many ways to display exactly that kind of life: taking photos of people in cars at stoplights, sitting behind desks, closed up homes with cars in front. The additional problem is that we are staying 20 miles outside of town.
When we are in town, we have to buy groceries and get things done. I take my camera, but there is rarely an opportunity or time to just go shooting, and by the time I have time again, we are back outside of town and away from people.
I know, I am just complaining, but I really want to shoot. I love it when in Asia, because people are just outside. It is easy to find opportunities to shoot: markets, streets, folks on motorcycles, or whatever…people are everywhere. Not in America. It feels like a land of living cars going back and forth between buildings, like ants carrying out some unknown job between this ant bed and that tree.
I want to shoot. I love my wife and boy, but I want to shoot something besides them. Let me out!
