Negative Space #010

What if we already made it? Plus, "The Cove" Written by Carter Davis Johnson

Quickly raking the shirts off their backs they sprinted out into the water. The deeper they got the higher their knees went trying to keep up the pace against the friction of the waist creeping water. Like a ball being rolled on carpet getting slower the further out it goes. Their spirits never slowed, made known by the laughter that bounced off the water’s surface. They splashed without a care, an absence of care that I once knew very well. I’m sure we all once knew very well.

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What if we already made it?

For the last post of 2023 I’m going to make it a short one with just some brief thoughts. I’ve rewrote this post about a dozen times now and nothing seems to be working so I thought I’d keep it simple.

I’ve thought a lot about what it means to make it in the photography world this past year. Looking back, I’ve put more effort into “making it” in 2023 than I have any other year. From starting a business that failed, applying to mentorships/fellowships that I got rejected for, and many uncompleted projects; it’s been exhausting. When I open social media I see so many people striving to make it. Including myself. It’s like we’re constantly striving in an optical illusion. The more we move towards it, the further away it seems to get. 

But what if we’ve already made it? 

Thinking back to when I was a child, I didn’t understand the concept of making it in this life. 

I just lived. 

As a child I wasn’t worried about getting the next gig, being well liked, or famous in any way. Life was lived moment to moment, until it wasn’t. At some point that was lost and the striving began. I found myself valuing the “biggest” moments over the numerous small beautiful moments in my life. Or searching for the big opportunities rather than seeing the value in the seemingly smaller opportunities that were presenting themselves. 

But the good life doesn’t lie in the boisterous moments in our lives. It lives in the mass in-between. The mass that defines who we are and what we actually have to appreciate. And in 2024 I want to put more effort into that. I want to put more effort into documenting my family and my daughter’s life. I want to pour into Negative Space and build it into something more than a monthly publication. And I want to keep growing in my craft as a photographer.

I want to live in the mass. To be reminded in the small moments that I’ve already made it.

The Cove — A poem by Carter Davis Johnson

As a send off into 2024, I wanted to end this post a little different than normal. I asked Carter Johnson, a writer and PhD student at the University of Kentucky to collaborate with me on this post by writing a poem to accompany the print for this month.

I first came in contact with Carter through a mutual friend that I went to college with. Carter and Colby (my friend) host a podcast together called The Craft. I remember hearing The Craft for the first time and thinking that it was one of the most practical podcasts out there for people who are wanting to increase their skill and philosophy of their craft. I highly recommend listening to this podcast.

Carter also started his own Substack this year called Dwelling. Carter writes, “Dwelling explores the intersection of my interests through creative non-fiction. It is a place of junctions: literature, fly fishing, philosophy, aesthetics, style, and a Christian orthodoxy which — as G.K. Chesterton wrote of the Catholic church — can be compared to “a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.”

Carter is the real deal, and when I asked him to write a poem for this post, I was amazed at what I was reading and with the feeling that it left me with after reading it. I encourage you to read it, and read it again. Sit on it and explore the meaning that it holds.

Carter, thank you for taking part in the last Negative Space post of the year.

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She told me once of a hidden cove,

A place of vaporous summer days.

The mountains hemmed the pebbled shore,

Awash with quartz and slated grey.

Beneath the touch of heavy sun,

Beneath the bristling shade of firs,

Their merry band would reach the rocks,

With laughs that bid the stones to stir.

The stones demurred but gladly lent

A place for them to make a leap,

And rinse their young, unwearied lives

In jasper green and murky deep.

Their feats of glee would leave long wakes

That testified to early dreams:

The ripples left behind the strokes

Were ever lost to larger seams.

The cliffs observed their snickering jokes,

That rose like vapor in the air,

Before condensing into clouds

That brushed the hill’s unmoving stare.

Her golden hair suffused the waves

On languid rolls to calmly break.

Had someone seen her from afar,

They’d guessed a naiad of the lake.

She told me this not long ago -

I thought perhaps I heard a sigh -  

“The cove was then and this is now,”

She reaffirmed with aching eyes.  

— Carter Davis Johnson

Have a happy new year.

Cheers,

Andrew