A DASH. OR A DOSE. OR A SMIDGE. OR….

By MICHAEL PERKINS

I’VE NEVER BEEN ONE OF THOSE RIGID RULEMAKERS who dictate that all photographers must shoot something every single day. To me, that’s like saying that you must make an entry in your journal without fail, each day of the year. Now, while you certainly can do so with either pictures or diaries, the whole idea of publish-or-perish seems arbitrary, even a little anal, and I avoid it like I avoid many other things that start with “always do” or “never do”. That, for me, is just not how art happens.

When it comes to making pictures, I have two kinds of dry spells; self-imposed, due to a lack of ideas or motivation (or both); and imposed from outside, like isolation or illness. Presently, I’m just my way out of a dead space of the second type, caused by a back injury, which had meant rolling through a lot of consecutive days when either the inspiration or my own energy to shoot are in short supply. As stated above, I just can’t commit to the “shoot something every day” mantra, but there does come a point, however many days it takes to get to it, when I feel I have to try something, even if it’s small or stupid. This can include staging still life on my computer desk or tracking morning shadow patterns along a wall. I can’t say that I reap too many miracles on these interim assignments, but they are enough…a dash, a dose, a smidge…just a reminder that I haven’t lost either my touch or my enthusiasm.

Photographers can get spooked during dead spots in their daily regimen. It’s not that we quite fear that we’ll never shoot again, more a feeling that making pictures oils some kind of mental hinge, and that rust can set in fast if we don’t give the thing a regular squirt. Imagine Jack Haley in The Wizard Of Oz freezing in mid-sentence or mid-step, needing a jet of juice to get moving again. And then, just when you think you’re washed up, a western bluebird jumps into range and takes mercy on your stranded soul. Such things fire the imagination, and, once that happens, you’re firmly on the comeback trail.