I’m not sure whether to consider this statement merely stupid and misinformed, or downright malicious and intended to undercut the ability of professionals in all fields — not only photography — to earn a living.
When did access to tools become equivalent to professionalism? When were talent, skill, experience, and training made irrelevant?
Using the same reasoning, everyone who owns an electric saw or other woodworking tools is a professional carpenter. Is anyone who owns a few rolls of electrical tape and a few gauges an electrician? Is a plumber anyone who can afford wrenches? Is everyone who owns a computer and a printer, who has a blog or posts on Facebook a professional writer? Since anyone can buy paints and an easel, that means I’m a painter, right? Everyone who has a digital camera can make movies, so are we all professional filmmakers?
If ignorance is bliss, I believe Marissa Mayer is the happiest woman on earth.
What do you think? Does access to professional equipment and/or professional tools make a professional? Does ownership of tools convey professional status on anyone with a credit card? I’d like to hear from you. Personally, I find this highly offensive. Am I overreacting?
I was turning 60. It had been a terribly difficult five years. I had felt the wings of the dark angel gently brush across my face. You know death is close when the dark angel does not frighten you but seems more like a friend, come to comfort you in a difficult time.
I’d pulled back from that edge. I’d had a vision telling me to live and I did. I do.
It was less than a year later when my personal calendar flipped to 60. I could no longer pretend at youth. Sixty, is not so old, but it assuredly is not young.
Nor is it middle age. Sixty is the leading edge of years termed golden — a cynical stab at making a sow’s ear into a silk purse. The downward slope of life’s mountain is perilous. Sharp turns, unexpected twists, unseen hazards blocking the path. They poke and hurt.
Friends depart or are too tired to want to be social. They move to far away places you cannot visit. You lose your will to battle airports and security. Your passion for travel no longer burns hot. Email and telephones, but it’s hard to hear on phones and even email messages are more succinct.
When I turned 60, my husband colluded with family to throw me a party. This was no easy feat as the pool of friends had so greatly diminished, yet somehow, he did it. I saw faces I loved, hadn’t seen in a long time, and some I’d never see again, though I didn’t know it at the time.
There were friends from every place in my world … family I would never see again. It would be the last time my brother would visit because in a year, he would be gone. I look at the pictures and probably 40% of those guests have moved on to another place, hopefully a good one. The gathering was a great though bittersweet gift.
Life goes on. Good times never end. Always, there are days of laughter but softly, softly there is the ticking of the Big Clock. We don’t miss chances to visit, moments to share.
We live in the now, fully for it will not come round again this turn of the wheel.
The cat on the lawn lives here. They grow corn. And hay. Plus some veggies. It’s a lovely place.
The corn is still green in July.
Corn grows in the fields in late summer.
Just around the block. The chickens used to roam free, but I think the coyotes were beginning to take a toll. The wild turkeys live here too, roaming around, but knowing they’ll get fed.
Mendon Barn
The red barn, Douglas, Massachusetts.
Inside an old barn in Uxbridge, Massachusetts.
The Blackstone Valley has always been a farming community. Although it was the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, the farms have always been here too. People, after all, need to eat and where the ground is fertile and apple orchards thrive, families will farm.
Summer has come, right on time. It usually shows up just around Memorial Day and that will be here this weekend. The cows are serene. The chickens and horses are content and peaceful. The corn is coming up green and it looks like a good crop is on the way. Soon we’ll have fresh local produce and our air will be full of the scent of things growing from the earth.
American mythology declares them to be the backbone of business.
Mom and Pop. The symbol of our nation’s best. How lovely dealing with neighbors and friends rather than faceless corporate giants. Oh, wait. Our friends and neighbors work for those corporations. So aren’t we dealing with them anyhow? Just asking.
Every day, it gets a bit harder to find Mom and Pop businesses. You could blame it all on corporate greed pushing out small businesses. So nice to have a bad guy to blame. Too bad it’s not true.
The world keeps changing as does what people want for themselves and their children. The labor intensive small retail businesses that have long been the bulwark of America’s Main Street are not appealing to today’s computer-savvy kids. They are much more likely to want a shot at the boardroom of one of those aforementioned faceless corporations.
Who does want to run those little businesses? Immigrants. The people we are so determined to get keep out or get rid of. They see long hours and hard work as an opportunity. American kids see it as a dead-end. They are both right. It’s all a matter of how you look at it. Most of our small general stores, if they haven’t already been knocked down to make way for a CVS or Stop & Shop, are being run by newcomers from India and Asia. They do fine.
It’s easy to understand.
Mom and Pop got old. Their kids never wanted to work at the family deli, restaurant or ice cream shop, so as soon as a better offer was available, they took it. Mom and Pop didn’t send the kids to college so they could slave their lives away like they had, so they’re onboard. That was always the plan.
One by one, the family run businesses are closing. Young Americans don’t want to work that many hours for such small returns and the old Americans agree. You and me may want to support them, but they prefer to retire. If they can’t find a buyer who wants the business, they sell the land at a tidy profit to the highest bidder.
It’s not unreasonable to want profit from years of sweat and labor. Everyone knows small retail businesses — unless they find a niche market that doesn’t put them in head-to-head competition with corporate franchises — barely survive, even with enthusiastic community support.
I’d gladly support local small businesses, but who? One by one, our restaurants, delis, gift shops, independent groceries, book stores are going away. There is only one independent bookstore in the Valley now. There never were many, but now, one.
Independent drug stores? Gone. Small clothing shops? Nope. We still have delis, a few restaurants, lots of hair dressers and fingernail shops. A couple of tattoo parlors. One big lumber yard cum hardware store. Everyone else sold and moved away.
Around here, we are grateful to have a Walmart. Without it we’d have no place to shop for anything without driving 25 miles to the mall. Someplace to buy dish towels, paper goods and bathmats. The place to go if the microwave suddenly dies or I break another coffee carafe. Walmart did not displace local businesses. We never had them. Maybe a hundred years ago, but not in the last 50 or more years.
Good bye, Mom. Good bye, Pop. We miss you, but I understand. You worked hard. You want some time off now and an easier life for your kids.
Escape can be a thing of the mind, a displacement. It can mean a vacation to a far away paradise, or at the very least, travel to a kinder, friendlier place.
Escape can also be literal, to run from danger, to seek safety if life is threatened.
Which do these offer? And why? Only you know. Only you can guess the truth.
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
