I realized something today — September has been a form of beginning of my personal “Photography season.” Since I finished my undergrad, my summers have been fairly low-productivity in regard to my art practice. I will go out to shoot a few times, or in a rare case like 2021, the advent of moving across the country put me in gear to get out more often before moving. However, despite that, the Summer has always been a kind of mental break. School is definitely a player in that, as I’ve been conditioned to think of Summer as a relaxation time, a time to recharge and get ready for the oncoming school year. But, even now that I don’t have school anymore, that mentality remains.
Looking back at my photos shot in September between 2019 and 2023, there’s a pretty cool thing happening where It seems to be a point where my work takes a bit of a refinement moment. I start to think a bit more about what i’m photographing and why, how the scenes before me may contribute to my practice.
Back in 2019, I was a month into being a photojournalist. I would sneak in photos for myself on occasion while out shooting for a different story, and I’m always grateful for having done that. It led me to realize that I was much more interested in shooting photos for myself rather than for a news organization that payed me very little.
Into 2020, the dwindling restrictions around COVID-19 had allowed me to get out more often, including a trip to Chicago and more trips around my local countryside in central Illinois. This was shortly after I left the newspaper and started working at my local camera shop. I was all-in on color 6x7 and from there on it would become my primary camera, sometimes even leaving my digital camera at home.
Moving into 2021, I was moving. I had been accepted into UMass Dartmouth’s MFA program and I had to prepare myself. That summer was the most productive one in a while, which involved more photographs made along Route 66. Back then, I was still interested in making a documentary-style project about the route’s stretch through Illinois, but as the years passed, I realized that wasn’t really what made the photos interesting. The project was later dissolved and the images put into a new pool of color 6x7 photos made in the Midwest. But, September that year had brought out my first outings in New England. they set the stage for my oncoming MFA work which would span the length from the East Coast to the Southwest. I started to explore the South Coast of Massachusetts and made some images that wound up not making it into my thesis work, but allowed that foundation to be built.
Last summer was probably my lowest productivity I have had so far. I had zero pictures shot in the month of July, and very few in June and August. May had plenty after a trip to Illinois, but come September, the floodgates were opened. This year was almost identical in that instead of July being the barren month, it was June. May had yet another trip to Illinois that provided many new photographs and I still periodically shot photos in August and July.
This year, I went to Westport, MA and checked off a location I had scouted out a while ago. It was a dilapidated 7-UP branded vending machine next to a local seafood restaurant and it lay on a stretch of road containing many quintessential New England houses. With my recent decision to exclusively shoot with digital rather than my beloved 6x7, it was much easier to shoot around 12 to 15 unique scenes around that area. It wasn’t meant to search for new images that would spark a new project or anything, it was only to get off my ass and shoot photos for the sake of shooting photos. I hadn’t had a proper photo-specific outing in a while, even as I have been bringing my camera with me everywhere, my partner always having to deal with my photographic impulses whether it’s with her in the scene or not. It was good to get out on my own and go somewhere new.
There’s definitely something going on with September and it’s ability to get me into the mindset of making new work. I’m hoping that this momentum continues and that I can get out to the Cape to try more light experiments (those who know, know), as well as exploring New England further as I don’t know the next time I’ll be able to go to Illinois. I’m sure there are many other artists whose summers are more of a lull period, idea conjuring and loafing around, but when September hits and Fall is around the corner, all bets are off and it’s off to the races.