Cities of what

the thing that propels me through life is my anxiety, although maybe i
never gave it that name in the past. restlessness. i wake up and the
light is in a certain way and i’m compelled to be outside, photographing
it, capturing it while the world is still in bed. the images give me a
language, and when the landscape here changes little, i find little to
say. until i look back retrospectively and the images tell their own
story.

ever more i rely upon photography to speak for me. it means
more than it ever has. through it i’m taught that every country exists
in these unchanging photographs of san francisco; that my restlessness
for another place is a restlessness that likely would remain unsatisfied
by another place. but still my list of places to go, where the light
might fall in a certain way, grows larger by the month.

provence, portland maine, myanmar, copenhagen, kyoto.

when
spring looms nearer, i catch glimpses, shards really, as they’re tiny
intrusions upon my consciousness – of feeling and foresight for all the
photographs i’ll take in the future; scent and flavor and experience
reduced to a moment. i guess you could call it excitement, or
anticipation, but one that lasts for all of a split second, soon
followed by a feeling of having lost something. i’ve always lived with
this fear of missing out, and the pressure of maximizing every moment
for creative benefit. maybe because my head’s been so stuffed with
images of everywhere from a young age. maybe because of south america, a
country i saw at fourteen that gave the world a shape, and made my own
never enough by contrast.

to take up permanent residence in that one second, though: i suppose it’s what we’re all striving for.

—Anonymous