The World is NOT a Wonderful Place...
But it's still worth fighting for.
It’s tough right now for many of us.
Waking up to the news cycle every day is a nightmare, and I don’t know how to live here anymore.
I struggle to face each day with kindness and love, and my photography reflects that lately.
The act of taking photographs has been a lifeline. Outside of my family, it’s what’s keeping my head above water and reminding me to breathe. It’s an expression of my inner turmoil and sadness.
My photographs are prayers.
Not to a god.
…but to the universe, the earth, and the ground I walk on.
These photographs are my testimony of how I feel in this moment in history.
Everything is faded. Missing sound and color.
These creatures know something we only realize when our story has already been written: this moment is all we ever have.
So we have to fight for each one.
Photography his how I’m clawing my way out of the void, desperately fighting to feel something real.
And I have to remember a single true thing:
Nothing lasts forever, but tomorrow is never promised.
So maybe I’ll just stop watching the news completely… ignore the headlines and head out with the family out to seek the light.
(All photos: OM SYSTEM OM-3 and OM-1 MarkII with a bunch of lenses!)
For anyone out there reading this until the end: THANK YOU.
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I think it is Robin Wong who coined the term, "Shutter Therapy." I took some yesterday by driving around the grasslands of eastern Colorado with my camera. It helped.
The world is indeed worth fighting for, and so is my family, and yours, and our communities, and the land and water around us. Your art-making is the flame of your humanity, keep it going Jerred.