Today is the last time I will see or be able to write the date, 12/12/12. They say it happens only once in a lifetime which, I guess is true. I have tried to remember other fun dates like 10/11/12 or 11/11/11 but I failed to write them down. Today is my day off and so here I sit on a sunny day thinking about my lifetime.
Just today I received news for the first time ever that I will have to have a surgical procedure. For the first time ever I had an MRI today that has shown I have a medial meniscus tear that needs surgery to repair. I guess my knees have stood for 39 years of skiing hard and done everything I needed them to do. Today I now step over the line here in Aspen from those that are going to need knee surgery to those that have had knee surgery. I knew this day was going to arrive sooner or later, oh goody.
As I write this I am listening to Mumford & Sons “I Will Wait”. Jenny and I are waiting for our first born, due sometime near May 24. I am sure this will be a once in a lifetime event. Something to look foreword too!
Since this site is mostly about photography I guess I should say something profound about that subject.
In my lifetime we will have gone from film to digital. I learned about light and photography in the film days. I have spent time in a darkroom, I helped produce most of the photographs for my high school yearbook in a darkroom. I think that is where most of the magic has happened in the past from the masters of photography like Ansel Adams. The negative was just the beginning, he printed photographs differently in one part of his life then he did later in his life. I am sure if someone could get a hold of an original negative they would print it differently today then he would have liked or ever did. I hope to understand my tools to be able to print or produce photographs that will stand the test of time. I hope my photography is archived and around and usable for my child to see what I have seen through my lens. One hard drive crash, fire, or flood and it seems that a lifetime of work could be flushed. I hope to have a system in place for the world to be able to see things far into the future.
In my lifetime I will always be learning about photography. That is the appeal, never perfect, always striving to do better. I recently went to the Denver Art Museum and saw an art exhibit titled “Becoming van Gogh”. One thing that sticks with me is his writing that he never considered himself a “great” painter much less a master of the art. He was always a student striving to be better.
Enjoy the day you have been given, it could be once in a lifetime!
ML
