While walking home from the food market this morning, I realized that I had in my possession two borrowed books.
Hours earlier, Gilbert, a favourite local food producer in our market, handed me a dog-eared, musty-smelling book from 1975 called, “Le Noyer” or Walnuts in English. He showed me the page for “Franquettes” because these were the same kind that he’d planted over 40 years ago. I can personally attest that they produce delicious walnuts. He thought the book would be helpful because BD and I are in the midst of choosing which type of walnut trees to plant in our garden.
The second book, “TA Today, A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis,” was loaned to me by my friend Julia. During a Sunday hike we talked about one of my photographic narratives and she thought the book would help me to tease out the meaning of the project I was working on. It’s a challenging read but I can understand why she thought it may be helpful and I stuck with it long enough to clear the roadblock I had with my narrative.
Aside from borrowing books at a library in 2009, this is the first time I’ve been loaned a book in decades, let alone two books. I thought I must be a trustworthy person to garner this sort of confidence in others.
What do the youngsters do these days to show such confidence in their friends? Airdrop from iBooks? Share their Kindle content? It just doesn’t seem the same.
Earlier this week I was listening to photographer Brooks Jensen and his always insightful podcast at LensWork Publishing. He too had books on his mind with an episode called “A New Habit” that hit the nail on the head for me. He, and most photographers I think, have a habit of collecting photo books and magazines and then never make the time to read them nor give them the attention they deserve. He counseled that before we dig into our day that we dig into our photo books instead. After hearing the podcast I’ve started to do just that.
I now have a pile of books and magazines in my kitchen, ready to dig into. Top of the pile was Martin Parr’s Early Works, a signed copy that I bought from the Photographer’s Gallery in London in November. The photos were made in the black and white film days and there’s a certain innocence and freshness to them not found in his current work. My takeaways were that to become as good as he is there’s a journey that we all must take.
Aside from a stress-free, device-free way to start the day, it’s a pleasure to appreciate the work of others and plow that wisdom into my own work.