Tarmac Meditations #171: It ain’t home if you can’t shoot the hell out of it…with a camera

It has been more than two years since I have been able to wake up out of a restful sleep, grab my camera pack and head out the door with purpose. Such is the aftermath of several strokes and a round of cardiomyopathy, the latter of which damn near did me in. Seriously. The result has been, not in any specific order, a general gratitude for each new day; a rage-inducing inability to type quickly (or slowly) with any accuracy; a variety of med-induced incapacities (read adventures), digestive and otherwise; severe back pain from one of the early strokes (a fall recovery that accompanied said event caused some longterm disk damage); and a whole inventory of newly minted whining and complaints. IN other words, one morning, I woke up OLD and broken. But after all is said and done, I’m doin’ fine, and like the poet said, “Don’t ya think twice, it’s alright.”

Nowadays I am often restricted to shooting what I see out of my back window or my front door. This particular day has some great light changes in it. And since I can no longer chase the shots (read runners) that appeal to me and for which I used to get paid, I have gone back to basics: natural light, in the world as I am in it. I have made my studio the world outside my door as I can see it, and I wait for the shots to come to me. Very freakin’ ZEN, no? But what else is a guy to do, especially if he hates flash and arranged shots (I started out in this passion late in my life; I found my inner photojournalist too late to be a combat/social photographer but just in time to become a decent sports shooter, all natural light and unscripted action). I love telling stories with the images I make, the ones that find me. Here are several, both colour and black and white, of a morning in my life not too long ago.

After all the whining and losing are done, and the relentless, useless calculations of loss finished with, all that is left is the doing. I said that. 

Poto Credit

Photos by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved.