Am I Still a Photographer?

Wrong question. The right one is “Was I ever?”

Before I picked up a camera, I was far more comfortable behind the wheel. Literally chasing the limit of mechanical grip and youthful indifference to danger. Before that? I was more comfortable behind a rifle, and the youthful indifference of whom crossed those sights as long as it was for Queen and country. Yet before that, it was a guitar I picked; rosewood and mahogany rather than magnesium and fluoride. Before that again, a 2B suited me just fine. So why should it stop at the still image?

There is a saying: “If Tarzan never let go of the first vine, he would never cross the jungle. You may be afraid of the fall, and that fall is very real, but so is stagnation.” There is no augment as to my skill with a camera, little debate as to my authenticity as a documentarian, yet is this the finish line for me? If I never let go of that vine, where would I be now? I’d have a few more stripes on my shoulder and a nice pension waiting for me, yet my hands would never be scrubbed clean.

Now, don’t mistake this for cowardice, I have no issue drawing blood. Certainly none in self-defence, metaphorical or otherwise. What I have issue with is serving a master who does not have the subject or the nations wellbeing at heart. Metaphorical or otherwise.

Perhaps I am still a soldier after all…

I thought about changing careers, and I may yet still. There is only a certain amount of disdain one can take from the people who are supposed to help, or the people one is actively helping. In fact, much of what I am doing today, this year, is opening those exact doors.

Ishida Mitsunari had the mandate of the ruling Toyotomi clan,he had the numbers, and he held the high-ground at Sekigahara — and he lost. I named my camera after Honda Tadakatsu’s spear, the Tonbogiri. And that was no coincidence. But just as the Tonbogiri was the weapon of Tadakatsu, the Honda were the weapon of the Tokugawa.

More Ironic still is what I named my editing rigs: Yamato and Musashi, as the development of each mirrored the development of the vessels. Yet as history would have it, I belive I am destined for the same end as the Yamato. And this captain will not abandon his ship.

Yet here we stand in 2026, and the Yamato means what it always meant; Yamato-damasii. Death before dishonour.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is it a duck? And every day that goes by, what I do behind-the-scenes looks less and less like photography. Is the camera actually just an obstruction? I lived by the creed that it was the interface, the handshake between myself and my subject, yet what if it was the barrier?

I haven’t taken a disliking to the camera itself, and certainly not the frame, but the delivery method has become obfuscated. Which is ironic, because much like trying to inject a dog, it is best done with the animal unaware. Yet this industry is more akin to covering the eyes of the veterinarian, rather than the dog, and calling it a correct use of the cloth. And it has become taboo to even wonder as to why the animal needs treatment to begin with, only to keep on the pretence of treating.

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, is it a duck? And every day that goes by, it is beginning to look more and more like one very specific non-DRobertsPhoto shaped duck.

If I changed careers I think I would retrain as a mechanical designer akin to Ken Okuyama-sensei, Syd Mead or perhaps even the Braun-era designers such as Deiter Rams or Gerd A. Müller. I think that already shows in much of my work. Perhaps even more akin to early-Apple Jobs. If age and wisdom finally get the better of me, I may even discard my intolerance for formal academia.

We have made tools for millennia, from bones and shells to literal rock and seed, either to kill or to document. I think people forget that, before we made a single mark we sung like wolves in the night, to remember. The things we did, and the things done to us.

I don’t separate tool from purpose, and this is one of the reasons that Katana are so special. A Tachi made 800 or more years ago, is just as a dept at its function today as it was when it roared red-hot from the furnace.

There is a part of me that is irrevocably and unassailably attracted to this… just as the Yamato was sunk, yet it gave Japan what it promised the people; total control over the Pacific for over seven decades.

I have gone so far past the point where a photograph is merely an exposure that there is no other way to speak other than in metaphor, simile, and allegory. I find myself closer to Dazai or Mishima, in operation and in outcome, than Adams or Salgado. I find myself in history closer to Hideo Kojima than to Fan Ho, and find myself asking the question yet again “If it looks like a duck?”

And I have gone so far past where a photograph is even close enough to express what I need it to.