Grab the Moment

"You need to live in the moment

Instead of hoping.

Your future is waiting for you"

(Lyrics from 'Actions that Echo' by Twin Atlantic)

On New Year's eve I was talking to a friend from Olympus UK and we were discussing how we were going to celebrate the occasion. I'm always concerned about these conversations because I think New Year is a totally pointless celebration and the danger is that I come over as a grumpy, miserable, 'bah, humbug' type of person (and I don't think I am usually - but then I would say that wouldn't I?!). However it turned out that both of us had the same view.

I think the whole process of being happy about the end of another year and celebrating this passing of time is a strange thing to do. Now if someone could stop time - that would be worth cheering over! And New Year's resolutions - what are they about? I just don't get the yearly obsession with making promises you probably won't keep (e.g. exercise more, lose weight, eat more healthily, give up alcohol, increase the kids pocket money by 200%) or commiting yourself to life changing plans that you probably won't implement (e.g. work fewer hours, be nicer to the boss, travel more, become more positive about New Year).

Seriously why does it take a date in the calendar to make us change our behaviour or to do something we have always wanted to achieve? Can't (or rather, shouldn't) this occur at any time of the year? If not then opportunities are being missed, time is being wasted, life is passing us by. My view is we should grab the moment and make things happen now before it's too late.

In this context then on the 1st January I was interested to read a post on Facebook from American photographer, Guy Tal where he quoted Francis Bacon - "Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake".

Now you are probably asking yourself - 'what has this got to do with photography?'. Well in a general sense I guess, not a lot. It's much more a philosophy about life. But the connections with our photographic practice I hope are not that obscure.

If you've got a photographic project that you've always wanted to do, a location you've always wanted to visit & photograph, a member of the family you've been promising to take a portrait of, an exhibition you've had in mind to do or a book idea you've wanted to get published then get on and do it. Don't wait until the 1st January 2017, 2018, 2019 ........ Be radical - do something different, take action on the 10th January or the 27th of June even!

And in case you're wondering about the relevance of the images in this blog post - they are photographs of my daughter and my wife. Both images made because I realised that I take very few photographs of my friends and family so I resolved to do more. For information I think it was a 4th November resolution.