DEAR FRIEND,
I hope you are well and that you have been spending ample time speeding past all kinds of trees and other natural objects on the moto up in Oregon.
I know there is really no need to send you a letter but I am imagining you reading it in the upstairs of the shop and maybe it’s raining lightly outside or it is evening and you have some warm light on up there and I want it to be paper in your hands.
I also have grown convinced that letters are good and part of something that we need more of everywhere.
I’ve been working at a bakery in the sunset a couple of days a week as you know.
I have also been taking photos there, in a sort of secret way.
I put my camera between bags of flour on one of the wire racks so that I have quick access throughout my shift.
I feel this incredible need to take a picture at different moments of light and activity in the bakery.
And I think photography has become my habitual expression of a broader need to DO SOMETHING in the midst of my awe at the often surprising and beautiful arrangements of the world.
I’ve been reflecting on the origins of my photographic habit, and in the process I have realized the extent to which our photos share a history and origin.
Both looking down from and up into the hills and mountains around Ashland, we were, at a young age, taken by the power and beauty of such forested vastness.
As we moved through this world on our feet, on skis, on bikes and on motorcycles, I remember both of us being struck by the impression that certain moments could not simply be allowed to slip into the undifferentiated and hazy past—something was HAPPENING and the very fact of this eventfulness required a response FROM US.
We answered this call by picking up cameras and making photos of nature, of each other, and of our friends.
My zeal for the natural world and various sports in our childhood has, with time, found a fresh object in the activity of preparing food.
I have become convinced that to cook well and with love is a human activity of immeasurable potency.
At Daymoon and in my kitchen at home and at countless other moments I feel taken in such a way that I must make a picture, and sometimes I act on it.
What do you think?
What have I missed?
Does it feel like you are being spoken to?
Does taking a photo feel like a way of speaking back?
What do you remember from those tender days of our nascent artistic sensitivity?
I’ll be up north again soon.
Looking forward to building a big fire, cooking outside, and maybe fixing a few things at the shop.
With love,
Peter
