Endings and Beginnings

By John Kennerdell

It’s easy to know when a job is done: it’s when you get paid. What’s harder is to decide when it’s time to wind down a long-term personal project.

In 1998, a Japanese aid agency asked me to take some photos of schools and hospitals in rural Cambodia. I’d spent time in Phnom Penh but hadn’t ventured much into the countryside, partly out of safety concerns, partly due to the wretched roads. Helping push your bus through knee-high mud lost its appeal a long time ago.

But we did this trip by riverboat, and it was a revelation. Half the country seemed to be water, served by a vast fleet of elderly boats and impossibly colorful boatmen, porters, and passengers. It felt like a ticket back to the 1950s. I did the job but then stayed on another week just to shoot this waterworld.

My experience has been that we don’t choose our best subjects. They come to us, insistent and demanding. Here was something visually exciting, culturally significant, and likely to fade into history once the road system improved. There was no question but that I had to try to document a bit of it. What to do with the photos, well, I'd work on that later.

So for ten years I kept going back, usually at my own expense. Again and again. Until, sure enough, the boats began to shrink in size and number. The weird and wonderful cargo—pingpong tables and disco balls, looms and livestock, Chinese generators and teakwood beds—grew rare, then pretty much disappeared. Old fellows in fedoras gave way to young ones in baseball caps.

The feeling had been building, but it didn’t hit with full force until one day a couple of months ago. I was on a favorite dock—still a lively little place—but things just weren’t happening. It was as if I were trying to recapture my own best shots and not quite pulling it off. Another photographer fresh to the scene no doubt would have thrived on it. For me, it simply felt like time to move on. Yes, I’ll happily go on shooting the Cambodian boat scene whenever I come across it. I’m just not going to organize large chunks of my life around it any more. Time is finite, and too much else awaits.

As if to prove the point, on the way back to my hotel, crossing the big new bridge over the Mekong, I happened to see an impromptu volleyball game on the shore directly below. Not a subject I’d ever given a thought to, but it was a nice angle and within a few frames I found myself thinking, hmmm, Asian street sports...this could have potential. The start of another project? Well no, probably nothing that ambitious. But who knows? It’s just good to feel a little of the old excitement in a new context. The best subjects and the best shots, one always likes to think, are yet to come.

John

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Featured Comment by Semilog: "The volleyball player may be my favorite photo ever to appear on TOP. Gorgeous, like the very very best dance photography."

Comments

[Ken Tanaka]

John; Thank you for the good little story whose lesson is extensible across many endeavors...even far beyond photography. Recognizing when it's time to move on is an important, but rare, skill.

[Adam Isler]

I've often wondered about this. I've been shooting several series for a few years of my peregrinations around NYC: interesting (I think) sidewalk "found" compositions; people in the subways (I know, I know, it's been done to death); trees against walls in, often grim, urban settings and people plying various trades on Broadway.

When do I stop? When I get bored with it? I've already got too many of each and find it impossible to decide which ones belong in the "ten set" and which don't make the grade.

Thanks for the article and the 2 images are fantastic. Maybe I'll stop when I have something as good as them!
Adam

[Rod Graham]

That picture of the volleyball player...WOW! What a capture. You can see the tension in the musculature of his arms and shoulders, the focus in his eyes, but his hands look so relaxed and graceful. I'm not an accomplished photographer nor a great critic, but I DO KNOW when I see something I like---when it just "feels good" to my eyes---and this shot instantly became one of my all-time favorites. Any chance of owning a print of this??? Thank you very much for the post.

Rod G.

[J. R. Lennon]

That's a spectacular photo, of the volleyball player!

[Robin Dreyer]

Man, that volleyball picture is amazing.

[David Bennett]

Just looked at your site - lovely, lovely photos. The shot from below of the man holding the plastic jerrycans is the bees knees.

[Peter Hovmand]

Fantastic shot of the volleyball shot :)

[yunfat]

Awesome shots... and a good life lesson that resonates with me personally, as I find it very true you can't always "force" your photographic journey.

Taking the 1st shot apart you get +10 for rope in the air +10 for good BW conversion, +10 for "asia exotic" aka men with funny hats, +10 foreign language on the boat which looks funny, +10 for the sky, nice texture there, +10 for a guy looking bored. A lot to look at, especially when you consider the aisan waterways that provide transportation and life for many, a great deal is compacted into this frame.

The second shot is crakin also, skin tone is something special in that one, looks luminous, and the focus looks spot on.

[pete]

nice article and great shots!
5 years of architecture school taught me that finishing a project is what it is ALL about.
that doesn't make it easier, though!, the decisions are just as vexing even if thrown into relief by the bright light that the certainly that they must be made brings.

[Edward Bussa]

First, Mike, thanks for hosting John's article and images. Second, John, thanks for sharing your experience. Third, John, I'm not usually taken with B&W images, but your first image of the men on the boats stopped me in my tracks. The cloudy day and relaxed posture of the men in the ethnic setting struck chords for me at several levels. I find it is sparking creative thoughts for my own photography. The second photo speaks for itself, excellent. Again, great images, all the best and thanks for the inspiration. Your site is now in my bookmarks.