Five years ago today I created this, my first digital photograph. I used a 3.1mpx Canon A70. This and many other photographs created with this camera were displayed in exhibits in and around Otter Tail County. I graduated to a Nikon D70 after about 1-1/2 years and then sidestepped to a Canon G9; but I don’t want to turn this into a camera post, I want it to be more about creativity and creative growth.
I really don’t spend much time on photography anymore, my current career involvement is intense and fatiguing – and requires much creativity. I must also admit that over five years my subject matter is changing, I’m more interesting in photographing my clients. I’d always said that I’m no good with people (photographically), which is a sort of personal irony as my profession requires being good with people.
Five years from today I’ll be 53 years old. I wonder where my photographic interests will be then? I do so love the story and believe that we, professionally, as caregivers for the disabled need to be the story tellers for our clients. So much is not written down, so much is forgotten. My prayer is to become a better story teller and to form a team at work that is devoted to telling our client’s stories in a therapeutic, candid, careful, confidential and loving manner.
But as my professional duties seems to be distancing me from a closeness with photography; my professional direction and growth has caused me to become distanced from direct client contact. Instead I’ve become a teacher, a counselor, and a disciplinarian. My client care is not directly to the client but rather through our workers.
So regardless of the technology, either that of photography or that of social work; both are about the relationship with the subject of concern. There is deep beauty in need – the need of a human being; and there is deep need in beauty – the beauty of an artistic subject that must be expressed.
