the crash

Yeah.

I’ve given up cheese and bread and most processed foods. Most of the things I’ve survived on for the 46 years of my life.

So it stands to reason that when I get hungry, and let too much time go between meals, I’d get a little despondent.

Several years ago, probably in 2016 or so, I thought I was dying. I’d had radioactive iodine ablation therapy on my thyroid the year before, and my thyroid levels were not leveling out as they should have. And my calcium levels were high, and I felt terrible, and my endocrinologist was not sure there wasn’t something screwy going on with my pituitary gland….

And I took several of the photos I’d taken in the five years’ prior, and converted them all to black and white and made them into square formats, and made a photo book out of them, and called the project One Hundred Sixteen, related to our address at the time. And I had Ilford silver gelatin prints made of all the photos in the book…..I wanted my husband and kids to have the best of what I had done with the previous five years, in photos, things that my eye had captured over the years.

The photo above is one of those photos included in the book and prints.

And that is how we came to have a crap ton of silver gelatin prints of my early work around the house, and even more live in a drawer in our dining room now, just taking up space.

I don’t have the exif data from that file above, since it’s so heavily altered. But if I had to guess, I took that photo above with a Fuji X-T2 and probably the 56mm f1.2 lens or the 35mm f2 lens. Around that time period all I would have had was the 16mm, the 56mm, the 35mm f2, and the 90mm, all Fuji X Series native lenses. It was for sure either the Fuji X-T2 or the Fuji X-Pro 2 camera.

I laid down for a nap earlier this afternoon because I was tired, and when I woke up I was in an awful, teary state.

I sold off 4 GFX lenses and the second GFX 50sII body this summer, and now I deeply regret it.

If I had the second body, I could go around with both Cinelux lenses on.

If I had the 45-100mm and the 100-200mm lenses, I could better do wildlife photography.

But at the time, I had things I wanted to do and we sort of needed the money and well…. so they went.

And so my meltdown earlier today was about that, and was also about the fact that while nobody paying me doesn’t mean I’m not a photographer, I also realized what I have given up in closing down my business. Even if it cost massive amounts of money I never made with it.

I miss people asking me to take pictures of things, and I miss even more having the gear I had to be able to do so.

Now, arguably, the X-S20 is better for some of that than the GFX gear.

But once you have shot with a medium format camera….it’s hard to go back.

It’s sort of like people who have to downgrade lifestyle stuff.

And I have worked hard these past couple of weeks. Our house isn’t perfectly clean but it is better. The window coverings situation is certainly better, having a dedicated laundry day is better, Nancy is better, having the garage emptied out feels better…..

Having the garage empty means I can get back to my studio selfies. I should plan to do that in the next couple of days.

But then I got through with my pity party enough to go make myself my smoothie– almond milk, wild blueberries, spinach powder, and a banana– and two sips into my smoothie it hit me:

I was despondent because I was hungry.

HA.

Y’all, I am so used to processed foods and cheese and all the yummy goodness. But the things I am eating (today’s breakfast was late and it was almond flour crackers, decaf coffee with marine collagen, and walnut pieces, and I did allow myself a protein bar this morning)….. they metabolize faster. And take more preparation than just grabbing a string cheese and a protein bar, or some goat cheese and sunflower seeds……

*sigh*

I do feel better. I went to bed not depressed last night. It was nice to just know it was time to go to bed and not feel like the world was ending, or like someone was out to get me, a frequent feeling late at night.

And there is personal drama I don’t care to go into going on, both for me and for Jared, and there’s just a lot going on.

And I don’t feel particularly inspired to pick up my cameras, even if I pine away over gear I parted with.

It all feels manufactured and pointless. Jared takes me to the Marina and I sit there with the camera in my hand and remember, not even really seeing what is in front of me.

And honestly, the sunrise photos at the Marina and the duck pictures in the evening are boring at this point.

It’s time for a personal project. And a reckoning.