Time Out

If you’re not familiar with Dave Brubeck's Album Time out and the most well known track ‘Take Five’, I heartily commend it to you. In my view it is one of the finest albums ever recorded. I was listening to it last week (on vinyl for the full retro experience of course) and the title prompted me to reflect on the benefits of taking some ‘Time Out’.

I'm approaching my annual summer sabbatical from landscape photography. Every year I take about six weeks off during which the big camera, tripod and all the other paraphernalia stay packed away and I spend time just being with my wife. I'll take the occasional phone photo or holiday snap but effectively I switch my mind off from locations, weather, compositions, posting to social media etc. I also suspend all workshops for this period. If we go for a walk, I’ll take a camera but photographs are never the purpose of the walk and never interfere with it. As a couple we never feel we have the opportunity to spend enough time together and this break allows some balance to be restored.

This year there are some differences as I've recently suspended all workshops and camera club talks indefinitely. A number of factors have contributed to this decision including ill health, deteriorating hip and knee joints but principally both had become a distraction. I plan on allowing print sales to continue at their very modest levels and may do occasional bits and bobs for existing clients but essentially I'm out of the commercial side of photography. I already feel more relaxed. I hope to write a little more and will continue with blog posts and reviews.

This period matches the time when my wife is off work for the school holidays and also the time during which the Lake District (and Scotland for that matter) is at its busiest and parking is at its most difficult. Additionally due to inconsiderate parking even making headway around some of the roads becomes a challenge. It also overlaps with the time in which the weather is often least supportive of my preferred conditions and it represents the height of our midge season. With regard to midges, if you've not yet read my review of Midgespecs, do so here. They are real game changers.

Making a considered decision to suspend operations represents a decision to take control rather than to allow oneself to experience frustration at any of the above impediments to calm landscape photography. I have never favoured any passive response to challenges that are presented and believe it to be unhealthy.

*Grasses and the Langdale Pikes Z50 + Viltrox 56 f1.7*

During this time, I don’t try to cut myself off from any thoughts about photography and will happily read, visit exhibitions, engage in discussion or watch video material. I’ll also devote some of it to study of some sort.

Study is a fascinating aspect and a benefit that's often overlooked is that the outcomes frequently diverge from those that were initially intended. That is why a rigid curriculum in schools often stifles children and particularly the most able. As teachers (the good ones at least), we learned to provide rich experiences that allowed pupils to take different learning outcomes rather than all ploughing a single furrow. If you take a class of Y6 oupils on a week’s residential trip, each one will come away with something different. The same applies to personal study. The key is to set off. From that point allow the winds and tides to take you.

The combination of such immersion together with the ban on planned, practical engagement serves to gradually build a growing excitement to be back out in the field once again. By the time September arrives, I am like a caged creature straining at the leash.

*By the Brathay - Four image stitch Z50 + Viltrox 56mm f1.7*

I channel some of this time into a review of the year gone by and much into plans for the one that lies ahead.

I'll review my own work critically; the benefit of hindsight generally downgrading images that I thought highly of in the heat of the moment. In other cases however, slow burners appear. I'll also try to look at as much work by other artists, including photographers, as possible. Whenever possible, the summer is exhibition season. We've just returned from the Monet exhibition in York. A really striking aspect was looking at his work from Giverny in terms of what we in photography would call Intimate landscapes. A little before the true start of the sabbatical but these things don't always fall nicely into the calendar. Looking at work by painters is always beneficial in my view. I've set aside some time to look at four recently arrived books and to write reflections. In each case, I felt they needed some dedicated time. I've got Alex Nail’s wonderful The Great Wilderness, this arrived some time ago and while I’ve enjoyed browsing it so much, I’ve not had the time to do it full justice. I’ve also got Volume II & III of the Natural Landscapes books and after many years I've finally managed to acquire a sensibly priced copy of Seaworks by Paul Kenny. I know how late to the party I am on Seaworks but having missed the boat initially, the s/h prices had become too rich for me. I think with many photographic books, it is easy to browse through quickly but for me that process has to be repeated multiple times and at some point a significant concerted level of attention has to be paid. It’s an easy cop out to blame Social Media but my attention span has definitely diminished as the years have gone by and I look for opportunities to practise the art of concentration for extended periods. By the time August finishes, I will have a plan for the autumn that consists of a photographic agenda, locations, trips away and usually a number of elements of life planning. I’ll also have a professional development plan. Last year this included among other things learning to make my own prints at home and procuring and learning to use an infrared converted camera. I’ve reached a point where my prints match those on my screen and confirmed that while I can manage the IR process satisfactorily, I still find little pleasure in the results. If this year follows the usual pattern, there will also be ingredients and new directions that I don't know about yet.

*Tarn Hows - D40 IR Converted + 85mm f1.4D*

This year has one unusual exception. I'm taking a week off from the sabbatical for a holiday in Chamonix and I expect to make photographs there. I’ve been planning trips to Chamonix since 1987. Initially climbing trips then drifting over to photography but for an immense number of reasons, it's taken until now to bring those plans to fruition and this still isn’t the ideal time but there you go. Not everything fits in neat boxes.

I often see posts from photographers who have lost their ‘mojo’ or who seem to have lost enthusiasm in one way or another. I think there are two main causes behind this. One is when their prime energy comes from extrinsic motivation; they are driven by likes and positive comments on social media. If these diminish, are unfairly distributed in their opinion or become negative their reward reduces and it becomes harder to get up and get out to make pictures. For those of us who are entirely intrinsically motivated, we are driven by our own inner desires and rewards. Any variation in praise has no impact. However there are other pitfalls. We set our own goals and have a tendency to be overly self critical meaning that we spend much of our time failing to meet our often unreasonable expectations. This causes an attritional process leading to an almost inevitable burn out.

My view is that for a healthy, sustainable, creative life, time away is likely to be beneficial. Whether that is other activities, other work, time off, holidays, inactivity and whether it is frequent or in chunks will vary of course but the the alternatives of burn out, unhappiness, dissatisfaction and frustration are all unhealthy states of mind whether related to the creative process or not.

It seems to me that one can spend time being dissatisfied and wishing that time away or one can spend it being relaxed, productive, reflective and building up a head of steam for whenever it is time to return. I’m assuming that for each one of us, depending upon our aesthetic choices and where in the world we live, different seasons will offer different possibilities. However in my case, finding some down time has been an immensely beneficial processes and if you don’t already do it, I recommend that you give it some thought.

Despite the immense power of introspection, I do lament the shrinking of, or my ability to find, good opportunities for discussion and debate online. A huge proportion of users have no concept of the distinction between debate, discussion and argument meaning that so many potential avenues are rendered immediately closed or toxic. The rapid descent to ad hominem attack tends to debase debate even when a case might be made for it.

Twitter, which I still can't /won’t call X (can’t due to habit and won’t because Musk wants me to), has been a reasonable home for discussion at times but so many have left. The inestimable Andrew Atkinson has performed a Herculean task in trying to cultivate some regular discussion through his daily polls but I can only guess at the size of that burden on his free time. While the Polls provide a great starting point, the character limit tends to stifle the debate to an extent.

I miss hearing what other people think and say. I miss, enormously, the Meeting of Minds conferences and still console myself with rewatching MoM lectures via YouTube. With the passing of Rheged as a viable venue and perhaps the passing of the ‘moment in time’ for such conferences, I doubt whether we will ever see their like again.

In two weeks therefore, I shall follow Dave Brubeck's advice and ‘Take Five (or six)’ weeks off to recharge my batteries

Some elements of this post appeared in a post last year.