For most of my life, photography meant going somewhere. It meant putting a camera in a bag, finding a place worth photographing, and then figuring out how to get myself, the camera, and whatever other equipment I had accumulated to that place. Sometimes it meant walking down a trail, climbing a hill, wandering around a desert, or simply getting out of the car and walking a few hundred yards to find a slightly better view. For a long time, none of this seemed particularly difficult. Then, gradually, it did.
Getting older has a funny way of changing the definition of “a short walk.” A distance that once seemed insignificant began to require planning. Hills became less inviting. Uneven ground became something to think about. Carrying a camera bag became less enjoyable. Eventually, there were places I wanted to photograph that I simply couldn’t get to comfortably anymore.
At first, I tried to compensate. I bought lighter equipment. I simplified what I carried. I convinced myself that I didn’t really need all that stuff anyway. This was partially true, although it is amazing how much equipment a photographer can suddenly decide is absolutely essential when it is sitting comfortably at home.
But something else was happening. I was spending more time sitting at the computer looking at my photographs. Then I started organizing them. Then I started experimenting with ways to display them. Then I started wondering whether the photographs might look better with a different layout. And then, somehow, I was no longer thinking about photography nearly as much as I was thinking about websites. This was not exactly the career transition I had envisioned. I had spent decades trying to become a better photographer, only to discover that perhaps my real talent was making little boxes on a computer screen line up properly.
There is something strangely satisfying about building a website. Unlike landscape photography, it doesn’t require hiking uphill while carrying several pounds of equipment and wondering why you didn’t just stay home. If something isn’t working, you can usually fix it while sitting in a chair. If the layout looks terrible, you can change it. If the photograph seems too large, you can make it smaller. If you decide the entire website was a terrible idea, you can spend three hours redesigning it. And nobody has to know.
The transition happened so slowly that I hardly noticed it. Photography remained the reason for the website, but the website itself gradually became part of the hobby.
I still take photographs. I still enjoy finding interesting subjects and trying to make a good picture of them. But photography no longer has to begin with a journey. Sometimes the creative process starts afterward, sitting in front of a computer, deciding how that photograph should be presented. In a way, the limitations of getting older simply pushed my interests in a different direction. I used to spend my time trying to capture the world. Now I spend some of my time trying to figure out what to do with the things I already captured. And perhaps that’s not such a bad trade. The camera may not get carried quite as far as it once did, but the photographs can still travel. They just need a website.