Slowing down.
On reassessing my relationship with photography.
What I know for sure is that I know absolutely nothing.
That’s the approach I’ve taken in just about every aspect of my life: I don’t know but please show me. Tell me. Explain it to me. Let me touch it, smell it, hold it, feel it. I try my best to arrive in any space with a wide open mind and heart—to be a blank slate. And all of this, I think, is why I became a documentary photographer.
I spent my twenties working as a photojournalist, often covering stories in short time frames with little-to-no notice that I was heading off for an assignment. I am not the most talented photographer in the world, but my talent lies in arriving in a brand new place, assessing it quickly, honestly presenting my intentions to the people I’m photographing, and then absorbing everything that happens around me. I have had the privilege of being present for and photographing some of the most pivotal moments of people’s lives, and being welcomed into those lives with grace.
(a wide edit from a tight deadline covering a caravan of immigrants for The New York Times in 2018)
(Transmitting photos to the New York Times of the solar eclipse in Mazatlan April 8, 2024 )
I have sorted, toned and transmitted photos to my editors on deadline from the dark corners of bars where patrons were singing karaoke or blasting banda, from below the bridge between the United States and Mexico in the pouring the rain, from a hammock deep in the Bolivian Amazon, from the bed of a truck at a funeral where caskets were still being buried, from the courtyard of the Mexico City military hospital at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I spent a lot of years moving fast, trying to balance thoughtfulness, accuracy and timeliness while also holding the dignity of the people I was photographing at the highest priority.
(a wide edit from a story about a doctor treating covid patients in their homes for The New York Times in 2020)
And then I stopped.
Or, maybe more truthfully, the world changed and so did I. In the long pauses between assignments during the pandemic, the many months at home after years spent using the apartment I shared with my husband as a crash pad between trips to the airport, I realized (with the encouragement of Dom) that the rate at which I had been working was taking a toll on me. So many journalists and photographers can sustain the rhythm at which I had been working for their entire lives, but as it turns out…I could not.
Dominic and I moved from Mexico City to Baja California Sur in the hot, stormy summer of 2021. And here I am four years later, writing this first Substack entry to you.
I have spent much of the last four years trying to figure out the things I was moving too quickly to figure out while working as an assignment photographer. What is it that I actually want to do with my abilities as a storyteller? What are the stories I want to tell? How do I want to tell those stories? What audiences am I trying to reach?
And what did I miss when I was blowing through thousands of images on Photo Mechanic, frantically making selects to batch tone and send by the time the buzzer sounded?
I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve come up with three clear goals for myself, and for the longevity of my storytelling career:
-I want to tell stories slower. I want to breathe. I want to take my time if I need it.
-I want to tell stories focused on our natural world. In a different timeline, I’m a wildlife photographer. Maybe in this timeline I’m just becoming one a little later in the game.
-I want to work with my favorite person on the planet—my husband Dominic. We’ve worked next to each other for years, but now I want to work together. We share a passion for the environment and a special love for the wildly unique ecosystems of our home here in Baja California Sur.
(a gray whale here in Baja California Sur for National Geographic in 2021)
So that’s what we’re here for! Welcome to our Substack. Dom and I will be generating original content (sometimes together, sometimes individually) that focuses on both photography and the environment. We’ll also both be going back in to our archives, to re-examine the moments we may have missed in the tight edit. This is a space for photography enthusiasts, nature lovers and…let’s be real: nerds. Nerds like us.
We’re so happy you’re here.
Meg