I took this photo with my Polaroid Land Camera...on the beach. How do people get good beach photos with film cameras? Or with any camera, for that matter? I saw a few people with DSLR's and iPhones, and I thought they were crazy. Anyway, after cleaning a startling amount of sand out of my camera, I realized that it's a hassle to take photos. Would it be better to just leave the camera at home? (I don't think I could, honestly.) But sometimes I'd like to put it away for a while. Just experience life as much as possible, without trying to "capture" it. It's an illusion, anyway. Do we owe it to our children to provide visual evidence of their childhoods? Or do we water down our actual memories by taking so many photos, which in turn tend to modify the original experience?

All I know for sure is that my photos rarely reflect the reality of the moment. (I know, Ducky, no photo is reality...) But I tend to crop out a lot of visual noise, creating a MUCH calmer vision. I think I do this to create what I want to see. Kristopher Matheson and I had a discussion about this once, and I'm still not sure if I understand it all. Maybe our intentions vary, and maybe we won't fully realize those intentions until much later.

Anyway, the above photo is fairly close to what I was seeing. I have a mild obsession with horizons, and I think I could spend the better part of a week photographing the ocean. It's very soothing to me.