The merriest of late summer wishes to you as you read this entry!

Recently, I began the pursuit of writing my first book.  A novel to be precise.  A dream held dearly ever since my freshmen year in high school, when the most unlikely thing happened.  My freshmen year English teacher, Mrs. Yeager, assigned us homework that required us to write a “What am I” piece of poetry.  I had never really thought about poetry until then.  Poetry to me at that time was about twisting the old and tired limerick of “There once was a lady from Nantucket…”.  Childish humor and ignorance to what poetry, and creative writing is, was all that was held in my head.  That assignment and subsequent reception to it, by both my instructor and class peers, led me to think deeply about what creative writing is.

I began to write poetry more.  I began to allow myself to daydream more.  I began to read even more than I already did, which was a lot.  I was a happy nerd.  I am, still, a happy nerd, when it comes to writing.  There was rarely a time where I wasn’t carrying a novel or book around.  Classmates would tease me about my insatiable desire to pour of the pages of a book and become lost in them.  I found myself walking stride by stride with Roland, the last gunslinger, from Stephen King’s epic series The Gunslinger.  I fell in love with the storytelling prowess of Edgar Allan Poe, Jack London, John Krakauer, and J.D. Salinger.  I was captivated and taken far away with tales of heroism and fantasy as told by J.R.R. Tolkien and cried ugly tears as Roland watched his love, Susan Delgado, perish in fire within the covers of The Wizard and Glass. 

Literature has impacted me so deeply and has helped mitigate so many trying times in life where I needed to simply get lost, if I couldn’t be out climbing a mountain.  Lost in the pages of a story either becoming the main character or simply observing the tale unfold from afar.  It’s fair to say that literature changed my life.  A book I hold in the highest of esteem is Dr. Michael Newton’s Journey of Souls.  The book answered so many questions I had held for so long about what lies beyond the realm in which we understand.  The theories of what happens after death and where we go.  It was a spark, no, not a spark, for that would understate the impact.  It was a supernova of epic magnitude.  A colossal explosion of awakening within me.  A rebirth and calmness for me that settled a soul which was always asking questions, which could not be answered. 

Creativity, for me, was not just about literature, though.  No, it was so much more than just that.  Photography followed and consumed my visual thirst for art much like the way my brain and heart desired novels and prose.  Studying videos, articles and paying attention to the masters of light and composition.  Striving to tell the stories of clients, landscapes and stars alike through images burned onto disk and printed onto paper.  Photography and writing.  A marriage of perfection.  A perfect union of creative energy. 

A photographer friend of mine posed the question to a group about photography being worth the investment of time, money and energy, when the resulting income never meets expenses.  I fully understand the conundrum.  Each year I fight the urge to let this website go and simply go back to being an amateur shutterbug.  I question my product, my abilities and my place in the world of photography.  I ask myself the question of, am I good enough?  Can I stand next to other photographers and be held equal and able?  Why am I not booking more sessions?

These questions haunt me, but still, I continue.  Refocusing on why I love photography and the solace it gives me.  The way a client’s eyes light up when I turn the LCD screen to show them the moment we captured.  The way a shooting star is recorded onto my camera’s sensor and the gleeful exuberance I feel (and sometimes dance around) after realizing I caught it.  Those moments in the wee hours of the morning when it is simply me, the stars and my camera.  Solace.  The story writes itself in these moments.

And so, after years of thought, wrestling and wondering if I could write a book, I began.  The story being told is of my fight with depression brought on, initially, by the attempted suicide of a long lost friend and by the diagnosis of brain cancer for my father.  The havoc the two events wreaked in my soul and antidote to it; hiking/climbing.  More importantly, climbing Mount Whitney.  Writing this novel has been more than just cathartic.  It has allowed me to relive some of the darkest moments of my life and realize that those events helped me to experience one of the most light filled.  The summit of Mount Whitney and realization that depression is something which can be fought.  A journey of keyboard strokes and sometimes, tears, that hopefully will culminate in a published version of aa story designed to lift others and show them an additional way to fight the darkness.

I question whether my own, self-created, literature will be good enough.  I question whether people will want to open the cover and dive into a personal struggle of someone they may not know, or care about, for that matter.  But, I hold hope that maybe, just maybe, the book will fall into the hands of someone struggling.  A fellow climber/hiker that may be experiencing the same darkness and is looking for illumination.  I hope that the tale of the struggle with depression brings them a reason to reach for the light.  To climb their own Mount Whitney and realize they, and they alone, hold the power to combat dark clouds that hang in their heads and hearts.

Literature.

Photography.

Hiking.

All things which bring peace, smiles and solace to my Lost Soul.  The namesake of my company, Lost Soul Imaging.  Not a sad name by any means, but one which tells everyone who I am.  The creative dreamer, lost in his own thoughts and while engaging in the pursuit of telling the story of life. 

I hope you, the reader, have enjoyed this month’s blog.  I hope that when the time comes, you may even grab a copy of story I am penning.  I hope that you look at things in a different lens when it comes to personal struggle and methods in which you can deal with them.  I hope that this summer has filled you with light, love and happiness.  May the coming fall season, also, fill you with wonder and joy.

Namaste, friends.

“Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures, kill nothing but time…”