Process Driven

About 18 months ago, I started seeing a therapist. I had gotten to a place that I’ve only really been once before and Adrianne encouraged me — actually, she implored me — to talk with a therapist. She once said to me, “Every day, I’m terrified that I’m either going to come home and not find you, or worse, that I will.” I’m not going to lie, that hit pretty hard. I knew I was in a dark place, but we often think that we are the only ones who know just how bad it really is — that we are somehow hiding it from the rest of the world. It’s not true, of course, but that was me in that moment, and to hear the person I love the most in the world say that to me…let’s just say that it shone a light on the dark that I felt surrounded by. So for the past year and a half, I’ve been having the sessions and doing the deep work of unlearning what I had learned and letting go of some of the limiting beliefs and behaviors that have seemed so hell bent on keeping me out of the light. CONNECT WITH MEVisit my Website: https://jeff

It took a bit to fire up, but once it did, the familiar rumble of my Dad’s 1974 Ford F100 took me right back to my childhood summers. As Art slowly backed the truck off of the trailer, Adrianne commented, “It’s smaller than I thought it would be, given how large it looms in your history.” Indeed, I thought. One of my earliest memories of this truck is of waking up on the bench seat at Buckskin State Park on the Arizona side of the Colorado river. It was cold that morning — though it was light, the sun hadn’t yet crested the red rock hills that bordered the campground to the East. Dad and my stepmother Linda were both awake after having spent the night in sleeping bags in the bed of the truck. Dad had made a small fire that was crackling and popping and I remember the faint smell of coffee on the chilly morning air.CONNECT WITH MEVisit my Website: https://jefferysaddoris.com  Get my Newsletter: SubscribeEmail me: talkback@jefferysaddoris.com

I’ve shared this story before, and regardless of whether it’s true or just the stuff of photographic legend, it’s so good that I think it bears repeating every so often. The story goes that a photographer was presenting his portfolio to the great Jay Maisel. He asked Jay how he could take more interesting pictures, to which Jay immediately replied, “become a more interesting person.” It may sound trite, but I think it’s often easy for makers to become myopic in terms of the types of things that inspire them. Painters are often looking at other painters, photographers look at other photographers, musicians are often listening to other musicians, and so on. If you’re always looking (or listening) to what’s familiar, the odds of you arriving at something that’s unfamiliar (even if it’s only unfamiliar to you), are pretty slim, which is why it can be helpful to look outside of your comfort zone for inspiration. I’m interested in almost everything so as you might imagine, my feeds are pretty eclectic. While I’ve g

For a long time now — years, in fact — I’ve leaned toward the belief that I deserve to be paid for the creative work I do. And to be clear, I don’t think that’s unreasonable, at least not from a certain point of view. After all, in a capitalist system that’s sort of how it works, right? You do a job, you earn money, you buy things. On the other side, goods and services cost money and we generally accept that premise. Cars, houses, a gallon of milk, a bucket of chicken — whatever it is, we accept that acquiring those things is transactional. I exchange the money I earn for the thing that you produce. The same goes for services like electricity, gas, your phone bill, or internet access. That’s just how the system works. But there are gray areas. Some types of goods and services seem to be more or less exempt from that agreement — namely creative ones. Music, movies, and software often fall into that bucket. And, to make it more personal, art.CONNECT WITH MEVisit my Website: https://jefferysaddoris.com  Get my N

Yesterday, I had a heart-wrenching experience. I was out for a morning walk with Adrianne and Cooper when I spotted a bird flailing in the grass under a tree. As I got closer, it struggled to escape, its life force fading away. When it finally stopped moving, I knelt down and tried to comfort it with a damp leaf (Adrianne advised against touching it directly due to the bird flu). Watching it die right before my eyes was incredibly painful. I still don’t know what happened, but it clearly had endured some serious trauma. Tears welled up in my eyes as I confessed to Adrianne, “I hate this.” She replied, “I know, but in its final moments, you showed it kindness and love.”A NOTE: I know this isn’t the usual fare for Iterations, but I think quiet moments like this can be just as important as the big existential ones. I have dozens of these types of vignettes — sometimes it’s just me taking notes on my life and the observations and feelings are just for me, but other times, like this one, I think they are worth sha

Last week, I got a text message from my friend Michelle, who works at the National Gallery of Art. “Lunch tomorrow or Thursday?” followed by “Come see the movie in Little Beasts. It starts at the top of every hour. I would love to discuss it with you.” Not only was Michelle one of the first people I met when I first visited DC in 2014, since then, she’s become a close friend and the National Gallery has come to be my happy place in DC. In fact, some of the best art and photography shows I’ve ever seen, including Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings (Catalog), Gordon Parks: The New Tide, 1940-1950 (Catalog), Outliers and American Vanguard Art (Catalog), The 70s Lens, and Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper (Catalog), to name just a few, have all been at the National Gallery. I’ve also learned about artists I’d never heard of before, like Rachel Whiteread, Philip Guston, James Castle, and Elizabeth Catlett, among others. And in nearly every case, when I’ve had the chance to walk through a show with Michelle, through he

Whether it’s a sheet of old plywood resting on a couple of sawhorses or a fastidiously crafted hardwood masterpiece, the workbench has long been the centerpiece of studios, workshops, garages, and maker spaces of all kinds.Of the many standout features of our house, I think I was most excited about the multiple basement spaces that I would be able to use as studios for the different things I do. The previous owners were makers — she was a painter and he was a woodworker whose wood shop occupied one of the basement spaces. When we bought our house in 2016, I remember telling Adrianne that I wanted to make one of the spaces my paint studio and that I would make some benches “on day one.” Well, day one didn’t happen, nor did week one, month one, or year one. In fact, it’s taken me nearly nine years to finally build benches for my studio. So what happened?See the photos I reference in this episode on Substack: The Ballad of the BenchesCONNECT WITH MEWebsite: https://jefferysaddoris.com  Instagram: @jefferysaddori

The other day, I was going through my archive of work ahead of a website redesign, and I found a blog post that I wrote in 2014 that’s sort of an homage to my all-time favorite camera and how after finally acquiring one, I couldn’t bring myself to actually use it. Ten years later, I think the post is still relevant to how some photographers and artists have a tendency to fetishize the tools they use. I know that was me once. For what it’s worth, I think photography is unique in that, because it’s art and science, the potential proficiency of the craft often gets conflated with having the “right” gear. The irony is that it really is the purposeful practice of using our gear, whatever it is, that allows us to get better — to see better. I bought my first SLR in 1982 and I have enjoyed taking pictures ever since. Over the past 40+ years, I’ve used a bunch of different cameras and I’ve enjoyed almost all of them for different reasons. But the one thing that they have in common is the ability to look at the world

I love making things, whether that means making a conversation with someone or making a piece of art or writing, and getting to do that fairly unfettered is a massive privilege and it’s not wasted on me. That said, it’s okay to be disappointed in what you make — and maybe not disappointed with the end product itself, but in the reception or how it gets received. It’s okay to be disappointed that other people don’t love it as much as you do — because you poured yourself into it, so of course you love it. But then when you release it into the world and the world just shrugs, it’s okay to be disappointed with that.CONNECT WITH MEWebsite: https://jefferysaddoris.com  Instagram: @jefferysaddorisEmail: talkback@jefferysaddoris.comSUBSCRIBESubscribe to Almost Everything with Jeffery Saddoris in your favorite podcast app. You can also subscribe to my newsletter on Substack.

NOTE: To see the photos that I reference in this episode, see the post on my Substack.On one of our recent morning walk and talks, a group of photographers and I were talking about how much worse Instagram has gotten over the past few years in terms of exposure and engagement. We all agreed that it seems like most photographers we’ve spoken to about it have very similar feedback. Subscribers, reach, and engagement are all a fraction of what they used to be. And the platform that was once all about sharing images no longer seems to care about images at all — instead they prioritize short-form video in a desperate attempt to compete with TikTok and YouTube. But in the process, I think the platform has lost its way and has just become a vapid mechanism to spoon-feed ads to users. To be clear, there are still a bunch of terrific artists and photographers on Instagram — which is the main reason I haven’t left — but that’s not what gets served up to me by the algorithm. Even the people I follow are in my feed less

Reinvention is tough. Disrupting old patterns of beliefs or behaviors is tough. Even when we finally decide to disrupt the flow of familiarity, the fear of the unknown that awaits us can be paralyzing. I know that it has been for me. But one of the things that my therapist routinely encourages me to do is to sit with discomfort — to force myself to pause and breathe and stave off the instinct to move into “fight or flight” mode. In sitting with the discomfort or the pain or fear, we reduce its power and we might be more able to move through it to whatever is waiting on the other side. For me, I think that’s the possibility of making more work that I find interesting, finding an audience that will value it, and becoming more connected with a broader community of artists and makers.LINKSBetter Than EzraKevin Griffin From Better Than Ezra Advice On SongwritingDo schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TEDKevin Griffin (Wikipedia)The Greatest Song by Kevin GriffinCONNECT WITH MEWebsite: https://jefferysaddo

Yesterday, Adrianne and I went out to one of favorite little coffee shops to have breakfast and spend the morning working. About an hour in, I had this urge to check Instagram, which I rarely do, especially lately. In fact, I haven’t really done much online or on social media since the election — I actually leave my phone home more often than not — but for whatever reason, I stopped doing my Morning Pages and picked up my phone and checked Instagram. The first post I saw was a story from Wesley Verhoeve. It was a photo of my friend Pableaux Johnson with a caption that read, “Rest in peace, Pableaux Johnson. Beloved by so many, a true culture documentarian, and a New Orleans treasure.” I was stunned and, in the moment, I honestly didn’t understand what I was reading. My first instinct was to respond to Wesley with, “Wait what? Pableaux is a friend of ours. What is this news?” Wesley responded, “He passed away. I’m sorry to bring you this news. I discovered it this morning from various other posts.” After a bri

I’ve held off on posting this Iteration because I just didn’t feel like it was that important in light of what’s happening in California. But after some reflection, I actually think that it is important, because art and making are still important. Hope is important. Helping people to feel just a little less alone and trying to connect with them wherever that may be is important and it’s what I try to do with these Iterations. I write about my thoughts and experiences in the hope that it may help you navigate your own.LINKSAmerican Red CrossThe Los Angeles Regional Food BankThe Animal Wellness FoundationThe California Fire FoundationDark MatterLabyrinthBlake CrouchApple TV+Texas Shakespeare FestivalAlabama Shakespeare FestivalCONNECT WITH MEWebsite: https://jefferysaddoris.com  Instagram: @jefferysaddorisEmail: talkback@jefferysaddoris.comSUBSCRIBESubscribe to Almost Everything with Jeffery Saddoris in your favorite podcast app. You can also subscribe to my newsletter on Substack.

I don’t know about you, but this is by far my least favorite time of year. It really starts around Thanksgiving, but this stretch between Christmas and New Year’s Day is particularly brutal — and it’s not just because I spent the first 48 years of my life in Southern California and still haven’t gotten used to the cold of the East Coast, but yes that. And it’s not just that I’ve lost both of my parents and Christmas has never been quite the same, but that’s part of it too. It’s more that I find it extraordinarily difficult just to be present. I feel caught between looking back on the previous 12 months and looking ahead to what I would like to do differently (or better) in the year ahead (but in all likelihood won’t, at least not to the degree that I tend to expect from myself). I suspect that I’m not alone in at least some of this. When I shared this with a friend, they responded, “Yeah, I feel the same way. But also the feeling and fear of the inevitable sameness as the previous year(s).”CONNECT WITH MEWebs

A few weeks ago, I took the train down to DC to meet up with my friend Richard Boutwell to walk through a show at the National Gallery called The '70s Lens. The show features the work of a bunch of fantastic photographers, many of whom I’d never heard of, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to go through it with him. Richard is a terrific photographer who specializes in western landscapes, mostly New Mexico, Arizona, and California. In fact, for years his grandfather was a park ranger in Joshua Tree, so he knows the park like the back of his hand. But as talented as he is behind the camera, he’s an even better printer. Richard has probably forgotten more about printing — both in the darkroom and digitally — than I will ever know. On top of that, he’s got an almost encyclopedic knowledge of photographers. As we were walking through the show, he was telling me all about this picture and that — why they are considered important, and in some cases, how the various photographers influenced each other’s w

Recently, I picked up a copy of Barry Lyndon on Blu-ray. It’s one of those movies that I’ve had on my watchlist forever, but for whatever reason it just kept slipping through the cracks. As I was researching some of the other Criterion movies I was thinking about picking up, I saw a story about Google’s new AI-integrated NotebookLM and decided to try an experiment to see what (if any) insights AI might have to offer around Barry Lyndon. The results were both exciting and a little terrifying.LINKSThe Criterion CollectionNotebookLMTechnically awesome, emotionally distant — Kubrick movie review (1975)YouTube search results for "Barry Lyndon"Making Barry LyndonHow Kubrick Achieved the Beautiful Cinematography of Barry LyndonAchieving Perfection - The Cinematography of Barry LyndonBarry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick's Meticulous Editing Process (Behind the Scenes)CONNECT WITH MEWebsite: https://jefferysaddoris.com  Instagram: @jefferysaddorisEmail: talkback@jefferysaddoris.comSUBSCRIBESubscribe to Almost

Saturday night, Adrianne and I spent the evening at the home of our neighbors Raj and Trupti helping them, along with about 60 other friends and family members, celebrate Diwali, which is the Hindu festival of lights. It’s hard to explain how incredible it felt not just to be invited into their home again, but to feel so welcomed by the other guests and to get the opportunity to participate in an event that is a deeply meaningful part of their culture.CONNECT WITH MEWebsite: https://jefferysaddoris.com  Instagram: @jefferysaddorisEmail: talkback@jefferysaddoris.comSUBSCRIBESubscribe to Almost Everything with Jeffery Saddoris in your favorite podcast app. You can also subscribe to my newsletter on Substack.

On Saturday, Adrianne and I took an impromptu trip into DC after seeing an interesting post pop up in my Instagram feed. The post was about an open studio event at the 52 O Street Artist Studios, which is a four-floor building that features “50+ Artists & Creative Businesses.” I’ve loved visiting artists’ spaces for years. When I was still living in California, I would regularly go to The Brewery Arts Complex for their open studio art walks, which were always fantastic. The Brewery is the largest live-work arts complex in the world, and for me the “live-work” aspect is really what sets it apart. There’s a similar complex in Alexandria, Virginia, called the Torpedo Factory that I also enjoy going to, but it’s a very different experience than The Brewery was. The artists only work at the Torpedo Factory and I think the fact that the artists at The Brewery work and live in the same space gives you a deeper insight into who they are beyond simply seeing the work. That additional context can make an enormous d

What you’re hearing (if you’re listening, rather than reading this) are the sounds of me unboxing a new keyboard — specifically, an Apple A1048, commonly known as simply the Apple Keyboard. What makes this keyboard especially interesting to me is the period of time in my life that it reminds me of — that and the fact that this particular keyboard has been sitting unopened and unused in a box in central California since 2003. I found it on shopgoodwill.com, where it was listed in “new or gently used” condition. When it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only was it in the original box — which wasn’t mentioned in the description — but it was also in the original unopened plastic packaging. The last “new” thing I bought on Goodwill was a Starbucks Barista espresso machine to replace my Saeco Via Venezia that finally gave up the ghost after more than 19 years of daily service and literally thousands of shots of espresso. And just like the keyboard, the Barista was unopened and unused, still in th

Last week, I released a video review of a new book from Prestel about Gregory Crewdson. It was significant for me, not just because Gregory is one of my photographic heroes — although yes, that is part of it — but because it was the first project I’ve done in quite a while that was really just for me. I’ve been on a bit of a “creative hiatus” for the better part of a year and I’ve only done a few videos before this. So more than anything, I wanted to see if I could pull it off and have it be interesting and feel like me, rather than just another YouTube photo book flip-through. And before I get too far into this, I want to thank Andy Adams at FlakPhoto, without whom it may not have even happened. Andy is a good guy and if you’re at all interested in photography, he’s well worth a follow.A few months ago I started seeing a new therapist, and part of what we’ve been working on is something called Somatic Therapy, which I’ll include a couple links to in the notes if you’d like to learn more about it. Basically,