I haven’t posted anything here since May, which isn’t particularly unusual. I’ve been neglecting this site for a few years now, so I’m not going to pretend that this is some dramatic absence. May just happens to be the last time I got around to writing something.

I’ve been thinking about photography lately, mostly because I’ve realized how much less often I pick up a camera than I used to. It’s not that I’ve stopped taking pictures. I still do that fairly regularly when something presents itself. The dog is sitting next to my desk, one of the cats is doing something interesting, there’s a hockey game or a birthday party, and I’ll grab a camera. But most of the time the D850 and the Zfc are sitting in my office, which is a pretty convenient place to photograph the dog and the cats, but not necessarily a great place to find much else.

I’ve complained about this before. I live in a leafy suburban subdivision, and I’ve written more than once about the difficulty of finding things around here that make me want to pick up a camera. There’s plenty of beauty, but not necessarily much that I find particularly interesting photographically. Most of the houses look like they came from the same catalog, and there isn’t a whole lot of interesting urban architecture, weird little businesses or abandoned industrial stuff within walking distance. If I want those things, I have to go somewhere else.

The problem is that I’ve been using that as an explanation for not taking pictures, and I’m not sure it’s a particularly good one. When I look back through my own photographs, I can find plenty of pictures I like that don’t really support that argument. I’ve photographed cities, suburbs, people, animals, flowers, still lifes and a lot of things that don’t really fit into any category. Sometimes the subject itself isn’t particularly interesting, but the light or the composition makes the photograph work. I’ve managed to find interesting pictures in some pretty ordinary places, which makes it harder to argue that the problem is simply a lack of interesting things to photograph.

I think what’s actually changed is that I used to have a camera with me a lot more often. Not because I was necessarily going somewhere specifically to take pictures, but because I was going somewhere and the camera came along. It might sit in the car for the day. It might be in a bag while I was doing something else. Maybe I’d take ten pictures. Maybe I’d take none. The point was that I was giving myself the opportunity to notice something. These days, I tend to wait until there’s already a reason to bring the camera, which means I’m mostly taking pictures when an opportunity has already presented itself rather than putting myself in a position where one might.

The more I think about that, the more I realize it probably isn’t limited to photography. I used to read a lot. I don’t anymore, even though I have a Kindle with enough books on it to keep me occupied for the rest of my natural life. When I have some free time, I’m much more likely to turn on the television, play something on the PlayStation or pick up my phone and start scrolling. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with any of that. I enjoy all of those things, and sometimes sitting and watching television for a couple of hours is exactly what I want to do. But lately I’ve been wondering how often I’m actually choosing those things and how often I’m simply doing them because they’re right there and require almost no effort.

My days have gotten pretty routine. I sleep in because I can, spend some time looking for a job because I have to, take care of whatever needs taking care of around the house, deal with the dog and all the other normal things that make up a day, and eventually I get to the point where the things I have to do are done. That’s usually when I sit down and do whatever is easiest. Then I eat dinner, do some more of the same, go to bed and start over again the next day.

I’ve been putting effort into the things I have to do and very little effort into the things I want to do. The odd thing is that I have more control over my time than I’ve had in a long time, and I’m realizing that I haven’t been using that freedom particularly well. I don’t mean that I should be spending every available hour being productive. I don’t want to turn my free time into another list of obligations, and I have no interest in becoming the kind of person who feels guilty for watching television or playing a video game. I think I’m finally realizing that I don’t want my free time to be productive so much as I want it to be mine.

I want to decide what I do with it instead of automatically doing whatever requires the least effort. Sometimes that will still be watching television. Sometimes it’ll be playing a game or scrolling through my phone. But sometimes I’d like to read a book. I’d like to take the camera somewhere without having a particular photograph in mind. I’d like to go somewhere I’ve never been and see what I find. I’d like to write here occasionally, even if what I have to say isn’t particularly important.

I’m not really interested in making some grand plan to fix all of this. I’m not going to give up television, delete every social media app and announce that I’m going to read fifty books and photograph every interesting building in Illinois. That would be ridiculous, and I’d probably be back on the couch before the week was over. But I do think I’ve gotten too comfortable waiting for opportunities to present themselves to me, whether that’s an opportunity to take a photograph, read something, go somewhere or simply do something I haven’t done in a while.

The cameras sitting on my desk are probably the easiest example. I haven’t stopped liking photography. I haven’t run out of things to photograph. I’ve just stopped putting myself in situations where I might find something worth photographing, and then I’ve been wondering why I’m not taking very many pictures. That’s a pretty obvious problem when you look at it that way.

So maybe that’s where I’ll start. Not with a resolution or a schedule or some new version of myself that I’m going to become. I’ll just try to make a little more effort to go looking instead of waiting for things to show up in front of me.

And maybe I’ll take the camera with me a little more often.

Minor irrelevancies, indeed.