Why We Do This

 

Witchwood Rocks, 2005

When you reach a certain age it’s not uncommon to reflect upon your roots and your experience with life. You also, I’ve found, spend a lot of time connecting the dots of your experience in ways you never imagined they’d connect, and figuring out who you are, why you are the way you are and why you do the things you do.

I was reading a magazine article yesterday in which the interviewer asked the late portrait photographer Ruth Bernhard why it was that most photographers live a long time. Bernhard’s answer startled me in the clarity of its explanation of what drives me.

“I’ll tell you what I think it is. Photographers have a great lust for life. There are so many interesting things in the world. You cannot get bored and you certainly cannot get depressed because everything is fascinating: every flower and every leaf on a tree. It’s miraculous. If you have that attitude it keeps you very young.”

Me explained. Finally.