My photography journey has taken me places and influenced my thinking in so many ways, it’s almost immeasurable.
For example, sit with any group of photographers for a little while and pretty soon the conversation will turn to glass. In our circle, glass is the cool-guy word for lenses.
“Wow, look at the glass on that body.” Or, “man, you should try this nifty-fifty F/1.2, it has a razor-thin depth of field and such sweet bokeh.”
Yeah, we do talk like that. It’s fun, and it has deep meaning for those of us who spend our lives looking through a lens.
But that got me thinking lately about how easy it is to adopt a lens without realizing it.
How we often select a lens specifically because of what it softens or filters out, giving us subjects in unnaturally sharp relief to the context around them.
I wondered, when I step away from the camera, do I still view the world through a lens?
Not a physical one, but a way of seeing that comes selectively focused, with its own distortions.
I wondered, do we all have a looking glass attached to us by the groups we belong to, the ideas we hold dear, the conversations with which we are most comfortable?
Through that lens, the world simplifies.
Not by becoming clearer, but by putting our opinions and beliefs in sharp relief.
People begin to look right or wrong. Ideas become something to readily accept, or distractions in our frame. Complexity gives way to certainty.
There is a kind of relief in that.
A complex world becomes manageable. A place is found. A position is held. Identity feels more secure.
But I’m beginning to wonder what that certainty is built on.
When the frame is narrow enough, almost anything can be made to appear wrong.
Not because it is.
But because the lens requires it to be. Because a lens has but one focal point.
I recognize the pull of that.
It is easier, more settling, to feel certain than it is to remain open.
Easier to peer through a lens that makes wrong anything not aligned with, or supportive of, our sense of self.
But the cost of that lost perspective seems very high to me.
And once the lens is in place, it becomes comfortable.
The thought of changing it, disquieting.
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