I thought it was over. Done. Never again. That Tuesday when I’d had enough and deleted my main email account. Severed like an artery. And then I stepped away, put the little box down and picked up a pen and paper. It felt like I had just finished a good book with a bad ending. My soul needed a new author, a new chapter to begin, so I began looking for what I thought would be peaceful.

I didn’t realize the impact my decision would have on others. “What do you mean you aren’t a photographer?” At parties I would introduce myself as “between jobs,” or “a hot tub installer,” just to see the reaction. “Oh no, no, no, he’s really a photographer,” my friends would say, almost embarrassed for me.

And then the phone rang. Dialogue. Discussion. Plotting. Planning. And now I’m a photographer again. Rebirth? Maybe. I dropped the old transmission and replaced it with a new model capable of gearing up through a new world seen through a new lens. And it’s working.

I’m fortunate. I’m very fortunate. This gig. Searching out those with creative lives and descending on them like a white shark circling, fin breached and the tail about to flip the forward thrust. Brick by visual brick I build. And I record. And I write. I pull positives and negatives and everything in between. And I print. Everything.

It is what I do once again. I’m a photographer.