I feel guilty about photography. Back in 2016 after I had moved back to Canada from the UK, I had accumulated so many photos. I had travelled to so many places and had such an incredible time and photos were my way of documenting what I had been doing and where I’d been going. I was so excited about photography that I went ahead and started a continuing studies program at Emily Carr University in Photography. I spent three years or so finishing that program and many weekends were spent working with my cameras, in the darkroom, or out exploring and finding things to photograph so I wouldn’t be boring. I learned that I loved the darkroom and the process of creating images on film and then printing them. I liked being in the dark and quiet for a whole day and completely losing track of time. I accumulated a very robust body of work that I thought I could begin exhibiting. I entered a few group shows with Shutterhub in the UK and felt really proud of my very modest Instagram following.
When the pandemic hit, I was dating a photographer. He was out of work, since he spent most of his time doing event and sport photography and while the restrictions eased after not so long (in Vancouver), the mood at the time was not very generative. We had started taking photographs together and doing a few weddings here and there and I thought it would be something we would continue cultivating after things reopened a bit. I even invested in a better camera that would perform better in low light. I really wanted to make pictures with him but by the second year of the pandemic, the relationship was ending and those dreams went away, as well as my energy and love for photography. I know that maybe these situations shouldn’t have meant that I stopped taking photos, but these in addition to a few big moves, new jobs, and a second masters program, meant that without that energy, life was intent on moving me on.
I suppose I feel badly because I invested so much time, money, and effort into this practice that I then let it go. And it made me feel worried about picking up other practices. Now that I sew, will I eventually let that go, too? I definitely burned out from doing a bit too much embroidery last year and have yet to properly pick that up again. So, I guess my question is - is there a problem with being “lapsed”? I still have all of the skills I learned, but I don’t engage in a practice of consistently cultivating them after a certain period of time (sometimes months, sometimes years). I also have yet to pick anything up again that I’ve let lapse. Maybe that’s the most concerning thing of all since it makes it all feel like a phase. To be clear, I think it’s completely fine to go through a phase, or have an ‘era’ and then to see how it all fits together or contributes to your life in different ways. I’m just wondering about whether the things I’ve let go of were things I should have kept, and about whether I’m missing out on something by not persisting and practicing through a rough patch.
I’ve been thinking about how to photograph my sewing and so I think that’s in part what is making me think back to what I used to do and reflect on whether these lapses are at all meaningful. In the meantime, I’ll keep enjoying my sewing era and I won’t worry about whether or for how long it might last.