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About That Rut

Rustem Pasha Mosque. A blogging rut.

I haven’t written about most of the trips I’ve taken in 2015.

My main camera has been broken for much of the year.

These things are related.

I approach all my writing through my photographs, even more than I realized. My photographs are not just my notes, my visual story; they are the embodiment of my memories, the physical footprint of my experience.

Sometimes I start writing about a place before I’ve even left. The words spill out and I furiously type in the notes of my iPhone, two thumbs whizzing over a tiny touchscreen.

Even still, those pieces sit and wait until the pictures have been developed, and then they are edited: the soul of the piece comes from the photographs.

The New Mosque.  A blogging rut.

This year, my process has been stunted. I still will write bits and notes and descriptions about trips. But then I get the pictures back– too often this year, rolls of blurry subpar photographs– and I get frustrated, and I put the negatives in a drawer, and I never finish writing the piece. When I know I don’t have the images to go along, or when the only photographs I can use are from my iPhone, my enthusiasm falters. And that’s a shame.

Travel-wise, it has been a full year. Though much of it has been work-related, in 2015 I’ve been to five different countries (including one new-ish one: it’s nice to finally see Slovakia beyond the Bratislava bus station) and on two domestic trips outside of Istanbul. Plus my life within Istanbul has been exceptionally fulfilling recently, and I want to write more about the city I live in.

And yet it keeps coming back to the photographs. Taking pictures is the way I discover cities and stories. I’ve been using some of my medium format cameras, but while the Holga and the Yashica are wonderful machines, each roll holds only 12 pictures and I find myself rationing even more intensely than I already do.

Istanbul blooms.  A blogging rut.

I’m hoping that I’ve made it around this bend. My friend and coworker gave me a Praktica LTL 3 for my birthday, and the machine works so far (knock on wood).  It feels so good to shoot again the way I enjoy, to fall back into the habit of photographing my life.

I’m also hoping this prolonged rut will be an opportunity to refine the way I write and what I write about, to make adjustments to this blog, to refocus on what is important. I’ve been to a slew of conferences in the last months; now I want to get back to creating.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to post more about my trips of the last few months– and don’t be surprised to see more iPhone shots than usual in those posts. (Like this post about Diyarbakir.) I am lucky to have any pictures to use, even if they aren’t analogue.

I will also be writing more about Istanbul, Kadikoy, and day-to-day life. It’s easy to neglect the wonder around me, I don’t intend to keep doing that.

No rut can last forever. I have a camera now. It’s time to make more memories and tell more stories.

Kadikoy pier at sunset.  A blogging rut.

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