Passion – An intense desire or enthusiasm for something.
The word has never sat quite right with me, though, I continually pursue it in my life. I can barely stand to say it, but I am truly passionate about following my passions. As it turns out, I am in the right business, because when it comes to photography I have passion. According to the thesaurus the following words are synonyms for passion: enthusiasm, eagerness, love, zeal, spiritedness, fascination, obsession, fixation, addiction and preoccupation. check. check. check.
Interestingly, I’ve found that pursuing passion is not particularly easy. It appears there should be nothing easier in life than doing what I have enthusiasm and love for, right? After all, it’s what I love! There are at least two major obstacles to overcome. The first is a sly one.
Do I really know what my passions are? The gut response is yes, of course I know what I love. But I’ve found that when actually working to define my passions, it becomes less clear, mostly due to the second obstacle.
Do I know the difference between things I like, and things I love? It’s clear that I like to take all kinds of pictures. I’ve enjoyed photographing a wide variety of things, weddings, architectural interiors, school portraits, still life, landscapes, events and the list goes on. I like them all. I’m not passionate about them all.
For several weeks I’ve been working to define what I love most about images and making them. This has been a challenge. I ask myself what do I love, and what do I really love? What am I drawn to for its own sake, without considering what I think its market appeal is. This is not about finding what kind of work will make me the most money. Forget what sells best, or what the big shot photographers are doing, what kind of imagery has the most draw for me?
I’m excited about this process and the focus it’s bringing to my ‘work’, particularly thrilling is the way that with practice I’m learning to recognize my own passions more clearly, and along with that comes increased confidence to pursue them.
The image at the top has been stuck in my head for several weeks. I haven’t defined why, but I know that it elicits fascination, obsession and preoccupation, also known as passion.
Below are a few other photos from the shoot. The model is Erika Klaar and it’s spring in Alaska. I remember that I was completely consumed by the creative energy on this shoot, buzzing from the thrill of creating images. This is not rare for me while photographing, and that high I feel confirms that I’m doing what I love. Thanks for reading all this, I hope it inspires you to follow your own addictions with greater focus.
After first hearing about the 
Along with the airplanes is a hangar full of manufacturers and dealers of aviation supplies displaying their wares. As a bit of an aviation nut myself I really enjoyed the weekend there in the hangar chatting with other flying enthusiasts and oogling over all the fancy toys that make my cameras look cheap for a change!
That’s what someone is said to have when they do curious things in the dark and cold of winter. Normal things would include carrying wood from the woodpile to the fireplace, talking to your friends about how stupid ‘The Deadliest Catch’ is, but how you watch it anyways, or spending all the money you made commercial fishing on espresso beans to keep you from hibernating. If you happen to be up late at night on one of those long winter nights keeping the fire going and see your neighbor stumble from his house at 5am in a skin tight black suit carrying what looks like a silver body bag you can safely assume he’s off to do some self medication for his cabin fever. Off to Bear Glacier, which is at least a three hour drive and a 45minute boat ride from anywhere, unless you live in Seward, Alaska.
Last winter a few of the local surf crowd headed to the glacier for a real alaskan winter surf experience. We left home at 5am so we could be waiting at the boat when Capt. Scott showed up at first light. After pouring a couple gallons of antifreeze coolant in the right main we where on our way, all wondering if the engine was actually going to need any ‘coolant’ with the air temps far below freezing.
As we approached Bear Glacier we were engulfed in a golden fog, and greeted with a decent 3-5ft swell rolling in from the Gulf of Alaska. Everyone suited up and jumped in the water as if they had mistaken Bear Glacier for a coral reef in indonesia. I was thinking about that science experiment when I learned that salt water can be below 32F and still not freeze. I guess I should have just been thankful we were surrounded by saltwater allowing us to use our surfboards instead of ice skates. After five months of refrigeration, the water in Resurrection Bay was cold.
Looking at the back side of the waves peeling along in nice rights I had to remind myself that this was a business trip, the surfing could come after the photos. If I would have known then that camera focus issues were going to make 99% of the shots useless, I would have happily left the camera behind and went for a good sloshing in the super cold cycle. However, I needed to learn this lesson, the one about taping the focus ring to keep it from shifting. The lesson was certainly burned into my memory when I returned home and looked at all those smiling faces with incredible snow capped mountains in the background. I think they were smiling anyway; mostly they were just black blobs in a sea of green with a background of white and blue. I clearly remember thinking how incredible these shots were going to be as I happily snapped away, consoling my aching desire to surf by promises of becoming rich and famous from these photos. As chance would have it, a few of the photos taken in the surfhousing did turn out, but I’m still waiting for the rich and famous stuff.