*Disclaimer (a): I'm fully aware of the irony of the journal entry that follows.
*Disclaimer (b): I'm fully aware you may not finish reading it because anything over 140 characters we tend to abort.
- May 2018 -
I have been growing increasingly bitter towards the state of our culture with social media, instant gratification, our obsession with self and comparison to others, and a constant need to find our moment to shout above the noise (see disclaimer above). Maybe it's increased awareness. Maybe it's increased cynicism. Maybe I'm just getting older. Whatever it is, the reason behind it doesn't matter. The point is I have been a willing participant in it and encourager of it for several years. And, to be honest, still am to some extent (let's face it, almost 100% of my business comes through social media). However, I am realizing more and more the value of simplicity, the value of not trying to claw to the front of the line, the value of just being. That's what this entry is about. I encourage you to stick with me here.
This month marked my daughter's third birthday. I'll spare the long story about the miracle she is for another time. Three years goes by much faster than you think. We had a birthday party for her at our house and we decided that each year instead of giving her a bunch of junk for her birthday, we would give her an experience. We bought her one present - a Fujifilm Instax camera. She's recently discovered a love for taking photos and we wanted her to have her own camera. But more than that, we wanted her to be able to take her own photos of her actual birthday present - a trip to San Antonio. I write this, by no means, to brag about our parental excellence or boast of our daughter's "present" being a vacation instead of a doll house. This turned out to possibly be more of a present for her Momma and me than it was for her. Although that's not what we initially expected.
We left for San Antonio on a Wednesday morning with a fairly solid, fairly loose schedule of things we wanted to accomplish on this trip. My wife and I had been talking about vacations we took as children and how excited we would always get and how much they meant to us. We talked about how, back then, you could really GO on vacation. You were unavailable while you were gone. You weren't available to work remote, and you could actually unplug. You didn't give a real time play-by-play of every minute of your vacation to the entire world. You went on vacation. No one heard from you until you got back. When they asked how your trip was, you told them all about it. You took photos with disposable film cameras, and waited to see your photos of the trip a week or two after you got back. Then you got to relive your trip all over again. "That was so much fun!" "I forgot I even took that picture." "That one is out of focus, but look how much fun you were having." Cheryl and I decided to have what we called a "90s Vacation." No social media. No posting constant updates of our trip telling the world (who, let's be honest, doesn't care) about every little thing we did and every piece of food we ate - which was way too much. I didn't take a single digital photo while we were there. If you know me very well, you know I almost always have my Fuji x100t with me and I'm constantly taking photos. I knew, however, that if I took that camera I would be tempted to take a few photos, scroll back through them, transfer the best one to my phone right then, edit it in Lightroom or VSCO, post it with 30 hashtags (because that's Instagram's limit), and then wait for the dopamine hits that accompany the "like" notifications I would receive from total strangers.
I didn't do that on this trip. I left that camera at home, grabbed my Canonet and five rolls of film, and headed out. I had taken some film photos during the birthday party at our house the weekend before and I wanted to document the entire birthday celebration on film, wait until a week after returning to get them back from being developed by The Darkroom in San Clemente, CA, and then see what I had gotten.
I told you it was a 90s vacation.
But shooting the vacation on film was not the purpose of shooting the vacation on film. The purpose was much bigger for me. It meant more time with my family - actually paying attention to my family. Not just being in the same room or general area. Cheryl and I rarely had our phones out for any reason at all. When we were at the zoo or Sea World, we left our phones in the backpack and just experienced everything around us. We didn't experience the vacation through the view of our phones or the back screen of a digital camera, taking a picture of every little thing. You'd be amazed at how much you see when you're not staring at your phone. We laughed with Henley, we laughed with each other, we watched Henley's face light up when the whales would jump out of the water, and watched and listened to her laugh uncontrollably when the whales splashed gallons of water on the audience. Those images and sounds are permanently fixed in my mind and I would've missed them if I would've had my phone or x100t out filming the show, or trying to get the perfect shot of the whales (which most of the people around us were doing, and completely missing their child's priceless reactions). Don't get me wrong, I took a few photos with my film camera, as you can see. But there was beauty in just raising the camera, taking the shot, and putting it away - not knowing what I had gotten and not obsessing over trying to get a better one. My focus was just to be. Be at the show. Be with my family. Be present.
Henley and Cheryl felt that. And it made all the difference.
One of the most defining moments for me was after we left Sea World, we came back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Henley wanted to go swimming again at the hotel pool, but we needed to get showers and get ready. So I took Henley to the pool to give Cheryl a chance to get ready with no delays or distractions, and to give Henley and me a chance to go hang out. I left my phone and camera in the hotel room and took absolutely nothing with me. Just Henley. We spent an hour or so swimming, and laughing, and jumping, and swimming, and laughing. Henley would get on the side of the pool, jump in for me to catch her, and then help her swim across to the other side of the pool while yelling "Kick, kick! Swim, swim!" Both of us cracking up at each other over and over. Each time we would reach the other side of the pool, I would sling her out of the water and stand her on the side of the pool. In between laughs and right before jumping back in to me she would yell, "You saved me, Daddy!"
Yes. Yes I did.
Cheryl and I spent the entire drive home trying to figure out why our trip was so rewarding for us. Why did we feel so much better on that vacation. It wasn't because we were "on vacation." It wasn't like we were just relaxing on the beach for a week and life was good. That would be easy to figure out. The difference was that for the first time in a very long time, the three of us focused on each other and just being together as a family. Making it a priority to not be distracted from one another by things that can wait and/or ultimately do not matter at all.
If you've made it this far, congrats and thanks for hanging in there. Believe me when I say this journal entry is not at all intended to tell you that you do vacation wrong. It's not at all intended to say social media in and of itself is bad and you need to stay off of it. Odds are you found this journal via social media (again, see disclaimer above). It's not at all intended to tell you to look at me and how much better I am at family that anyone else. It's the opposite. It is a confession of how much better life with loved ones is when you and I make it a priority to be 100 percent present with them. To me personally, I like validation in the art I make. I like Instagram likes. I like Facebook shares. I like Twitter retweets. Snapchat is stupid. I like people thinking I take good photos or make good films. Often I like those things more than I like my wife thinking I'm a loving husband, and more than I like my daughter thinking I'm a good Daddy. I knew that if I social media-ed my vacation for the sake of "art" and validation from strangers, I would ultimately be missing out on time with my family.
I was right.
I make no excuses and do not deny that I post photos and films on social media in hopes that someone will like them enough to hire me to create something for them. Let me just be honest about that. So if you like something I've done and wouldn't mind me shooting you (with a camera, of course), then I'd love to hear from you. If not, I'll keep making work that I am proud of, and some I'm not as proud of. But I'll keep pushing myself to be much better at the things that really matter.
I encourage you to do the same.
In the meantime, feel free to enjoy the photos from our family vacation.
** For any gear nerds, all of these were shot with a Canonet QL17 GIII on Lomography 100, Kodak ColorPlus 200, and Kodak ColorPlus 200 pushed to 800.
