The photographer & the Writer

I was sitting on the couch a few afternoons ago, cradled by familiar blue cotton, with the sun warming my back as I listened to a wonderful workshop by Emmie and Sierra. Unpacking the goodness that is Substack when they said something that made me reach for my notebook. They mentioned how comfortable we are about calling ourselves writers and how everyone has a different relationship to writing. It got me thinking about the labels with which we identify ourselves. How do we call out the things that we see in ourselves or the things that we think make up the foundations of who we are? Writer. Photographer. Mother. Sister. Lover. Analyst. Professor. Teacher. The list goes on and on. We are never one thing but this amalgamation of all of those labels.

I have found that some of those words we cling onto with a little more desperation than others. Protector. Warrior. Lover. Mother. Others, we let fall by the wayside, to be picked up when we feel we have met the criteria we have set for it. Writer. Photographer. Friend. I am guilty of attaching meaning to these labels to the point where I have forgotten who I was despite them. That the label of Caitlin, my name, should have been enough and yet this past year, I had to fight to make peace with some of these words again. Rewrite their descriptions in my head. Answer for the wrongs I have placed at their feet. Allow these words to find a place in me again. Shaped differently by time and its form different to the one it had when I first picked it up.

Some I found with ease. Like writer. I have never found any friction when using that word. I spend so much of my life writing that it has never even been a question in my mind whether I could use that label or not. I would not call myself an author, for I have neither written nor published any books. But writer, I welcome into my being with ease. The love that I have for writing, I have never questioned. I journal like it’s going out of style, notebooks filled with rambles and long, continuous thoughts. My notes app is a minefield of unhinged words that I one day hope to expand upon, but in reality, they are forgotten to the ether. I have a notebook I carry with me whenever I leave the house, just in case inspiration strikes. I will write with pen and paper until I die, and even then, I am sure my spirit could form a few more paragraphs, just in case. And so, the writer was welcomed with open arms and a hot cup of coffee. Settled in the armchair, feet tucked up against the cold, hair a mess, and fingers stained with ink. But settled no less.

Then come the words I have to fight for. Photographer is one of the biggest battles I wage. I wrestle with her still to this day. Hoping that one day she will fold easily into the body. To me, she is volatile and all-consuming. Some days, she comes quietly, whispering encouragement and inspiration. Other days, she throws shame like grenades, knowing that they land in the unprotected softness of my mind. In the underbelly. Where her shrapel lodges deep and will not be removed until I deal with the shame of it all. Like a lion in a cage watching the circus audience for that one moment of weakness. I know why she does not come easily.

I started doing photography because I have a love for it. For the craft, for the art of it. The reason I started it was because there is something to be said for capturing this one moment in time and being able to revisit it for hours on end. This one photo, this one moment, can open up a whole sea of memory. I love it for the gift that it is to the people who are in front of the lens. I have always known that I see people better when I see them through the camera lens. I started with a film camera, and I would bring it everywhere. And then some part of me decided I was going to do this for the rest of my life, and the only way I knew how was to turn it into a business. There came my downfall. Some people do well in business, I am not one of them. I don’t know how to do it. But I was determined. Determined to make this thing I love become my whole source of income. I was going to make the big bucks and do it by doing what I love. Isn’t that how it works? They always said that if you did what you love for work, then you would never work a day in your life, right? Wrong.

At least for me, that was wrong. Trying to turn what I loved to do into something that I needed to market and sell, to put a price on it, turned the word photographer into something I hated. I hated when people would ask me about it because I had nothing to show for it. I hated when people would tell me that they loved what I did, when I knew it was all old work made the word photographer turn into poison in my veins. And so we fell out of love. She left me, and I lay there wounded and bleeding, trying to coax her back to my side, but she would not come until I let the business go. Until I let this sham of an idea die the horrible death it needed to die. And so I did. I got a full-time job, and I learnt to fall in love with photography again. I tried to do all the things I used to love, but she would not return. She was angry with me for tainting her. For some people, photography and business work hand in hand, and I applaud you. But for me, they cannot coexist in the same body. Not yet. Maybe one day. But for now, she demands all of my affection.

It has been tiring and heartbreaking trying to welcome the word photographer back into my arms. I would keep comparing her to other photographers. Wonder what I did wrong. Why did she not let me turn her into a business? Why would she not allow me to succeed? Some days, I feel like I have the answer. Some people just can’t turn it into a business. Does not make them any less than any other photographer out there. But I had based my whole worldview on being a photographer, and she was done carrying the weight of that. She would not allow me back to her side if I kept thinking that way. So, Instagram was deleted, and the inspiration I would use before dried up. She wanted to be looked at in a new way. To be looked at with love again. Some days I can, and other days I feel so much shame that I can barely stand to hold a camera. But I will not be defeated, and so the wrestle continues.

The good days are starting to outweigh the bad, and I feel less and less shame when I think on the word photographer, for she means something different to me now. There is rebirth and return attached to her. A new thing. Not some old flame whose memory has been distorted by time. But a new love. One who is fresh and wild in her abandon. Arms open and beckoning. The past nipping quietly at my heels, reminding me of what went wrong the first time, but no longer dragging me down, but rather becoming the foundation that I stand on as I reach for this new thing.

I could go on and on about the labels and words that I have attached to my being. Maybe I could make a series out of it. Unpacking and understanding what words I think make up the bedrock of my soul. But for now, I am content to let the writer and the photographer have their space. One with a cup of coffee, the other with her extra dirty martini. 3 olives in a frosted glass and gin based, of course.