As soon as I finished my first photo book World Away, I immediately began thinking about the next book. I found the photo book process creatively invigorating. So much so, that the thought of the end result (the book) began to factor in to how and what I photographed. It helped me put some structure to what I shot.
I always shoot with some intent, beyond the immediate. There’s always a thread or two or three that I pick up and tug on as I shoot. I might put a thread down for a while, but there will always be something, a shadow, a gesture, a situation that causes me to pick it back up again and tug and play at the ideas that tug back at me. But, that process was always sort of a nebulous thing, kind of a wandering. The experience of putting together World Away reminded me that there was another level of creativity awaiting the results of my efforts. And, that did a lot for me.
When I’m going through the cycle of shooting and scanning and posting, I find it’s easy to bog down and forget about what inspires me. Sitting down and arranging images and seeing them again, anew, side-by-side with other images and noticing how they work together, against one another, provides a level of rediscovery that surpasses that initial sense of discovery I felt when I saw the image as I shot it or as I processed it.
I’m in the scanning, sizing, and layout stage right now (yes, I group all that in as one stage). So, needless to say. I’m in a good spot right now, because I’m playing with images. My plans are to finish both by the end of January 2010. I think I can meet that deadline.
