Unprecedented Abandon | 03

Part 3 : Past is Present

Writing about the past seems to have churned things up a bit. I had set things aside. Focused on the present. Moved forward. And this is good. But it appears that there was still a fair amount of accounting to do.

In order to not stay stuck in the past or continually replay unhelpful patterns, it is necessary to understand it. To take an honest account. We often prefer to craft a desirable narrative about events, edit things to suit a story about ourselves that we prefer over the truth. Then we perform that story for the world.

No matter how convincing it may seem, or how attached we are to it, my experience is a false narrative will get you in the end. Because a lie, no matter how desirable, is still a lie, it is covering up the truth. And if the truth is horrible, the lie is only perpetuating the horror. Only the truth will set us free.

4x5 Portrait of Artist Photographer Anne Kornfeld, Santa Fe, NM 2022

We bare our souls as artists in so many ways. That doesn’t mean we are entirely honest. Often far from it. As a photographer, I am particularly focused on reality. On what is happening, what has happened and what is to come. On recording a true event, a phenomenon. As a songwriter and musician, I am also telling true stories, recording events, transforming lived emotion into sound. They are both performance in their way, but I find I am not drawn to stage craft. I seem to prefer the elegance of raw, unscripted beauty. A mountain or desert creature. Not urbane and yet ferociously sophisticate.

So now, for me, the idea of liberation is not that I will ever get away from myself or my past. I know I will not. It is instead that by going so dangerously and deeply into the truth of my life that I will transform it into the will to be absolutely free. And in that place of freedom, find the love to create in total honesty.

Becoming the Land, Portrait of Anne Kornfeld 2022

I am very excited that I am photographing portraits on 4x5 again. It is truly a practice of love. Every detail is utterly fascinating to me.

I have told this story in order to go forward. I have some exciting projects on the horizon that I will be sharing soon. I wish you and yours the very best and thank you for connecting with me here as this journey of life continues unabated into 2022.