[Leica] Born At Risk...

[daniel.ridings at muspro.uio.no (Daniel Ridings)]

> But my point had more to do with recognizing that different
> photographers are driven by different interests, and have different
> contributions to make - and that specializing in the photographing of
> the 'mundane' flow of daily life may ultimately be just as important,
> albeit it garners far less attention, than photographing the raw and
> dramatic in the world around us.

Thanks for the clarification, BD, but I think we meant the same thing. I
had been "schooled" to think that the dramatic headlines was where the
journalist had to be and it had become my ideal, much like you had set up
your highest goals in Avedon and the others.

Once I followed the line of schooling to a critical point, that is when I
realized that I _wasn't_ really interested in the high drama of journalism
and that the "filler" articles where really my style (the mundane stuff),
that's when I changed.

Things got complicated for me though. I couldn't just continue writing.
For one thing, I settled down in a country whose language was not English
(met a pretty girl on my way to that critical point) and for another
thing, I remember experiencing Sweden as a country I simply didn't
understand. The first years I didn't even pick up a camera. I couldn't
understand what I was looking at. It usually took/takes me a while to find
the pulse of a new environment. Up until then, I had moved within
environments that were different, but had more or less a common
"platform". American military installations overseas -> American smalltown
(pop: 6,000) midwest (now _that_ was a cultural shock) -> Oklahoma City ->
Chicago and then off again (overseas).

I can honestly say that it is only within the last 5 years, after living
here for 28 years, that I feel I understand enough here that I can tell
what is mundane and what is unusual.

I can now write Swedish better than the majority of Swedes (says more
about the common problems of writing education in the west than my own
abilities) and can still take pictures (when I get serious). I honestly
couldn't for years. I didn't know what I was dealing with. Now I can see
things like this:

http://www.dlridings.com/paw2004/8.html

Ok, it's Norway, but I am starting to get around again.

I felt burned by the linguistic problem when I got here, hampered by my
Swedish abilities. That's why I turned to the Classics. I figured they
were valid in just about any country I would end up in. :)

Best,
Daniel