Indian School. A Sunday Walkabout.

12/1/2017. Phoenix, AZ

"You got to stay open" I heard on a podcast today in a conversation about creativity and self-discovery. I hadn't realized at that moment, I was hearing the words that would later dispel a creeping depression.

The weekend had gone by and I felt myself entering a depression. My mood was already blue, a lot of self critics in the air and I had some sour experiences related to my photography.

On Friday I attended our annual Christmas gathering with colleagues from work, whom had asked me to take pictures during the event. I haven't really explored that side of photography before, at least not in a serious, wanting to improve your skill kinda way. Needless to say I didn't like the pictures that I took.

Then since I was hungover from the Christmas gathering, I decided to bump my Saturday photographic walkabout to a Sunday one. On Sunday I had started to feel the first pangs of self doubt, without no where in specific I wanted to go, I left the house with no direction in specific, I saw the exit for Indian School Rd. and decided I had driven past a canal here several times....I could stop and take pictures there.

I did, walked around as dawn started clearing up the eastern sky, I started taking some pictures. I continued walking the canal, that I soon realized that my only backdrop was going to be the canal itself, the houses that line it to one side and the street to the other, which didn't seem to interesting to me at that moment. I still took my pictures of things that caught my attention, but I was left less than satisfied.

Today, Monday morning, I play a podcast where Liz Gilbert interviewed Glennon Doyle, in which Glennon talks about her Staying Open mantra she repeats to herself during a difficult situation. Which led later on today to download the pictures into my computer and see them on the screen for the first time, and I found out I had worse expectations for these pictures, and they actually surprised me.