“The idea of hope, of answers, of salvation just beyond the horizon.”
Richard Wagamese, One Native Life (2008)
It’s 5:00 am on a Thursday morning and I have just pulled myself away from The Vorrh by Brian Catling. It is the most amazing book and I can’t put the damn thing down! Which is a problem because I need to be at work in an hour.
I’ve been getting up at 5:00 am for the past four years to read and write. Yet I am having the most difficult time, just now, writing a narrative for these photographs.
The experience of making and producing these images has literally changed my life. They represent a significant shift in my approach to making photographs and, more importantly, they have set me free.
It’s true. These photographs have set me free.
For as long as I can remember I have suffered from social anxiety ranging from mild to debilitating. Like everyone else of my generation, I pretended I was ok and pushed through. Which of course, made the anxiety worse.
As I grew older “my secret” became increasingly more difficult to hide. At one point I remember saying to myself, “I would give anything for this anxiety to go away. Even for just one day, just to experience what it feels like to be normal.”
And then, ten years ago, I walked in to Dr. Julie Brock’s office and sank into her couch. Julie looked at me and smiled.
I had arrived.
The initial stage of my recovery with Dr. Brock was pure elation, hope and gratitude. I felt as if I had been given a fresh start, a second chance. I felt born again.
But my recovery was also marked by a growing, wallowing sense of resentment and grief.
Grief for a life, I suddenly considered, only partially realized, a life less than half fulfilled. The initial euphoria of my recovery became increasingly diluted by a constant stream of hypothetical questions impossible for me to answer.
I didn’t want my recovery to become a fulcrum separating my life into a before and after me, a good and bad me. I needed to accept the person I was before my recovery, and own that part of my life. Before this grief could eclipse my recovery and propagate only bitterness and resentment.
But owning my story based solely on elastic and temperamental memories was going to be impossible. I needed something tangible. A narrative I could hold in my hands so I could let it go and move forward with my heart. Elegy is the first in a three-book project I’ve called earth descent.
“…it becomes so simple when you surrender grief to the ongoing act of living.” — Richard Wagamese, Embers (2016).
Images from Danny’s Elegy series are shown below (click to view image at full size / original format).
Danny Miller was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada and in 1985 moved one province to the west where he has been living in Calgary, Alberta for the past 35 years. For 22 of those years he has been teaching at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) as a member of the Journalism and Graphic Communications and Print Technology faculties.
His interest in black and white film photography began in 2009 when he enrolled in his first traditional darkroom class at SAIT. His rationale for taking this class was to make him a better photographer by forcing himself to slow down and really understand the technical (and creative) decisions he would have to make with his analogue camera.
For years Danny was a disciple of “the sharper the better” photography school of thought until he saw Untitled (Niall’s River, Virginia) by Sally Mann. It wasn’t just the beautiful tones, vignette corners and soft focus of that photograph that haunted him. It was so much more than that. Danny had seen this “place” before – in a dream he had a week prior. It was an upsetting dream which took place along a sinuous river. In the dream, he had been abandoned on a river bank that looked (and felt) exactly like this photograph. Danny’s photography changed that day. He learned to trust his intuition as it sought a “deeper meaning” in his work. He moved away from capturing sharp, critically focused scenes and embraced the beauty found in imperfection.
Website: fivehundredandnine.ca
Instagram: @dmiller509
Twitter: @dmiller509
CREDITS
Unless otherwise stated, all words and images in this article are © Danny Miller
