How Jari Got His Groove Back
There are three basic stages to Jari moving to someplace new. 1. Excitement. Everything's new and fresh and full of vibrancy, and I HAVE to capture it all to pictures. Most of my best pictures come about this way, because I'm able to look at things from a fresh perspective. 2. Acceptance. I've gotten used to the new area and my pictures and enthusiasm have accordingly dried up. I'm basically boring at this stage, as are what few pictures I take. 3. Revitalization. I see something or do something new and fresh, and it reawakens my past fascination with the area, and my pictures and enthusiasm re-emerge, tempered with experience. As time goes on, I'm sure stages 2 and 3 repeat, but I've never stayed in one place long enough to find out. Except possibly Idaho, where my enthusiasm was basically tied to seasons, peaking in the spring. Anyhow, when I came here to Ontario, I went straight to stage 2, because it is very, VERY similar to where I live in Idaho. Even the novelty of a totally new photography assignment: taking pictures of people, didn't awaken me from my winter hibernation. But today I was feeling too sick to go on the fieldtrip to Hell's Canyon (it's a shame...I've always wanted to see that area, and I had some ideas for some really neat pictures to take, too), so I spent the day mostly laying around in bed, and then I went to the website of my old school to browse through their pictures. I'm quite impressed with some of them...especially the technique of Todd I-Forget-His-Last-Name. But it occurred to me that so long as I keep doing the same thing and going to the same places with the same people, I'll never get any new pictures. And I'll certainly never stop being bored. This quarter, so far, I have walked. Now I will fly.