Life in the slow lane

This week’s post is as much about life as photography (that said, all of life can be found within photography).

I recently highlighted how analogue film photography is undergoing a resurgence of popularity and how it forces us to slow down in a good way. As I practice it more and more I’m certainly noticing how reconnected I feel with something I’d lost: The enjoyment of ‘doing’ again, the challenge of having to be methodical to earn quality results; the increased need to discern because each film photograph is more costly to take than its digital equivalent.

Then there’s the loss of instant gratification because we have to wait until we develop the film before we see the results. Hang on – surely that’s a disadvantage? For commercial and wedding work, I certainly don’t miss those nerve-wracking waits until the lab developed the shots. But for personal work Albert Camus said it better than I ever could:

“Maybe it’s not about the happy ending.

Maybe it’s about the story.”

Albert Camus

Modern life focuses on the having, the end, the outcome, the goal. Is life really supposed to be that? Does nothing matter until that brief final moment of achievement?

I don’t think so. Why do people watch whole football matches and not just tune in for the last five minutes to see who won? What’s the point of going on a round-trip holiday tour? The journey is important. It just gets overshadowed.

A wider angle

Inspired by this newfound joy in slower photography, I extended this idea to other areas of my life too.

Digging out my 30 year old trusty Filofax meant that I rediscovered the benefits of journaling. Writing things down does something magical to our brains. I reflect and remember more than I ever did with my previous phone app. At university, my tutor got me to do ‘morning pages’ – a daily unstructured ’dump’ of what was in my thoughts and it’s amazing how many great ideas surfaced from them.

According to the boffins, having a ‘to do list’ again reignites the long lost satisfaction of ticking a completed item off. It creates the same tiny dopamine hit as getting a ‘Like’ on your latest TikTok video does.

Yes, the humble Bic biro is actually a potent magic wand. There are whole communities of people out there that have rediscovered the benefits of paper and pen, such as Philofaxy and Bullet Journals (The downside of course is that I can spill tea on my paper. So I need to be careful because I do like tea, especially from the wonderful Dorothy).

There’s even a growing movement with the noble aim of taking longer to actually get anywhere.

So I’m not alone.

Maybe we are onto something here, I thought to myself (chewing the end of my Bic biro). Where else could we take this?

I’ve always been a news junkie. However I started to notice that I was becoming conditioned towards reading the online newspapers in much the same way social media conditions us to: flicking through, taking in the headline and main photo then quickly swiping on to the next story. I might also then read the byline if my interest has been piqued, and the first couple of paragraphs. I’d then skip to the last paragraph before moving on. If it was something that really interested me, I would bookmark it to read later (then forget to read it later).

So I started to read newspapers again instead of waiting for the Breaking News! alert of the smartphone to interrupt my thoughts. By taking my news in a single, focussed, time slot a funny thing happened. I absorbed the context more. I pondered the different angles and nuances. I felt more informed despite receiving less frequent updates. And yet I had more time for other stuff too,

The same thing happened with photography journals (such as the highly informative and thought provoking Source).

Make haste, there’s no hurry

I concluded that we have all been tricked into hurrying up so we buy more stuff:

Obsolescence: Hurry up! The new car is on sale! (even though you bought the latest model only last year)

Envy: Hurry up – all your friends just went here for holiday, or to this restaurant. You’re missing out!

Digital fame: Hurry up – share more posts to get more likes and be seen as an influencer.

All this hurrying up makes us less satisfied with life and kills our ability to focus. It might be a necessary mindset for pleasing the boss, but not for noticing the joy in life. And anyone interested in photography is constantly charged with searching out that joy and recording it.

Henri Cartier-Bresson slowed down enough to be able to tease out a large quantity of life’s ‘decisive moments’. He became one of the most revered photographers of all time for stopping to notice the things we walk past. Elliott Erwitt and Martin Parr did the same for all the peculiar things we walk past.

Funny isn’t it, how photography is something that happens in just a fraction of a second, yet can help us to live all the other moments more fully too.