Changing one's trajectory is like moving a skyscraper. It's hard work; seemingly impossible (without dynamite) and more than a little mental "elbow grease."

 

I thought retiring would be easy peasy. I'd stop accepting work, reverse course in the financial arena and start taking money out of accounts after decades of putting it in, apply for Social Security, and then inundate myself with a whole host of exciting photographic projects that I'd put off while pursuing the almighty dollar. It seemed like an easy plan. I'd watched B. do it five years ago and she made it all look calm.  Smooth. Fun. 

So far I'm just winging it. There are routines which make life work. Praise for continuity. I get up every morning and head to the pool to swim. This morning there were three Olympians in the pool when I got there. It was yet another dose of inspiration to keep up the practice. Five or six days a week of fast swimming turns out to be the ultimate way to slow down aging. The hydrostatic pressure is a boost. The coordinated movement is good for body and brain. The higher blood flow for an hour is great at clearing the clutter (both physical and mental) out of one's brain. And the camaraderie of 25 or 30 friends surrounding you and motivating you certainly staves off any feelings of loneliness or isolation. 

It's just that after swim practice there is nothing I have to do. And I'm so used to having had a full schedule. 

I always thought, when I was younger, that the big challenge in retiring would be figuring out how to make the money last. Now I realize that I "over-trained" in that regard and under-trained in the "what is your purpose"/"what is it you want to do?" regard. I can go anywhere, photograph anything, but how does one pick and choose?

For the first few weeks of total retirement from work I spent too much time watching videos about cool cameras and listening to people much younger than me talk about their visits to inevitably overcrowded and over-touristed major cities. At first I thought I should go somewhere cool, like Rome or Paris. But here's the catch: I started going to those cities as a young adult. Back in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. I've been in and out of Paris and Rome at least a dozen times but each time I go back the cultures get more homogenized, the crowds get bigger, and the opportunities to make interesting and novel images seem been wrecked by zillions of versions of the same icons and curiosities shot at every angle, with every filter etc. 

Now it makes me a bit sad to travel to someplace like Paris to photograph. It's still a wonderful city for museums, galleries, restaurants and shopping but the sheer volume of tourists makes it all feel like the mad rush through the doors of Walmart on Black Friday morning to fight with other Americans for that large screen TV on sale for half off. Or to jostle for position in front of the Plexiglas covered Mona Lisa. It's just not fun anymore.

After watching the influencers gush about their first visit to someplace cool, and after watching a young photographer explain the thrill of buying his first Leica everything starts to feel like a sit-com re-run. 

The rest of the time I'm seem focused on reading the many books I didn't think I had time for but now realize that they weren't that good to begin with; at least not most of them... The second Sally Mann book was disappointing. Never meet or read the autobiography of an artist you admired. There is an extreme probability that you WILL be disappointed. I still like Mann's work but I sure wouldn't hire her as my house manager... Or as a life coach. I'm not even sure I would show up for happy hour...

The bottom line, I guess, is that my photography has never been about a "project" or a long series of images documenting an event. Nor has it been about landscapes or the documentation of travel destinations. The reason I loved photography was to be able to make portraits in a way that pleased me and in so doing it getting to sit for a time and chat with interesting and, to my way of thinking, beautiful people, and then to make prints of them. That's pretty narrow but that's pretty much my photo world outside of the old commercial work and the generation of ephemeral images to put up on the blog and on Instagram. 

Finally distilling down to this understanding is good in that it gives me a general direction to take with my personal work. 

This post is not a request for direction. I don't want to mentor anyone. I'd rather write checks to charities I like than torment each other with volunteer time. I taught for as long as I would ever have cared to. I know where to find the subjects I want and how to approach them. I don't need a "project" in order to be motivated to make portraits. By their very nature portraits are episodic and not continuous adventures. You see a face, you become inspired, you negotiate access and then you make the portrait. Then it's over. There is no continuous flow involved and that's fine with me. It gives me time to recharge and to process what I've done in the moment. 

I'm just tossing this writing out in order to solidify what's coming together in my own mind. I know some of you are going or have gone through the same process of trying to figure out how to make the best use of newly acquired time. It's harder than it seems. It's different than anyone thinks -- before it happens to/for them. But the best advice I got in this journey was from our friend, Frank. He suggested that one be prepared to embrace our own irrelevance. At the time I thought he was being ironic but now I see that he was imparting wisdom. 

Some things become irrelevant. The audiences shift and compress. People walk away. The reasons to go ever onward change. If you resist the change to irrelevance it can be emotionally painful. It's hard to believe that you will never be 25 years old again and surrounded by a social cohort of exciting and excited peers. Ready to conquer the world. With everyone basking in the glow of youth and the attendant beauty in the moment. 

Things were better for all of us when we were young and thought we could conquer the world. Now I'm working on conquering my need to conquer the world. A challenge for sure. But at least I have the time and energy to work on it....

Mannequins imprisoned behind glass...

The Boston Mannequin Society is the best.