TOP: September 2006 // Nikon D70, Nikkor 18-70 f/3.5-4.5
ABOVE: January 2023 // Nikon D700, Nikkor 35 f/2
ABOVE: January 2023 // Nikon D700, Nikkor 35 f/2
The first step to making images again is pointing a foot toward the door. That's harder than it seems to a body and mind trained in pandemic isolation. It was even harder in 2006 when I propelled myself on a road trip of several thousand miles to escape the inevitability of marital failure and divorce. Those ghostly footprints in a dune near Cannon Beach were mega-metaphorical. That spot once was a scene of my first step into an ocean, quite a feat for a landlocked Midwesterner. Later, it was a regular romantic getaway as my wife and I picnicked, played tag with the surf and wrote silly messages to each other in the sand, doing our best to forget the stresses of worklife. But, like all things, sadness washes away with the tides of living. You stand up again and walk in a new direction, getting stronger with every step. What I'm glad I remembered then—and now—is to put my camera low to the ground, to catch a glimpse of how wondrous the world looks from a different perspective.
