Standard.
May 6th | Whistler Blackcomb
Written by: Isami Kiyooka
I get off the sled, Post-shoot. A veteran photographer turns to me and asks casually, the kind of question meant to fill the quiet. "Are you happy with your photos, Isami?"
My instinct was to say yeah, it was great. But something stopped me. I sat with it for a moment. Was I happy?
"No."
Not because I hated the photos. Not because I missed a shot, upset a client, or lost anything I can't get back. I wasn't stressed, I wasn't spiraling. I just wasn't overly happy. I was pleased. And somehow that felt off.
This was my first sunset shoot in Whistler in three years. The last time I stood on this mountain at similar sunset I was 18, fresh out of high school, running a T7i that choked in low light, no flashes, no real system. Trying to time my burst with someone else’s flashes to save it. Everything I made back then was held togetherwith ambition and a little luck. If I had seen tonight's photos at 18 I wouldn't have believed I took them. The creativity, the fluidity, it would've sent me over the moon.
Tonight it didn't.
I shared that with the photographer beside me. Said I think my standard has changed. Which led me somewhere harder:
what is my standard now? And what would actually make me happy?
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In 365 days I had hit both of the goals I'd set for myself in photography. Get a cover, shoot the Olympics. Along the way I shot for Moncler, Prada, Adidas. Got sponsored by brands I wouldn't have dared put on a vision board: Monster Energy, Canon. These weren't small things. I felt happy then, So why was I standing on a mountain in May feeling like I'd left something on the table?
I rode down alone. Quite ride aside headphones blasting L$D by Asap Rocky, headlamp cutting through the dark.
I think artists are always chasing a high. The Filmers call it a clip high, that hit of dopamine when you know you've made something real. It's addictive. And I wasn't chasing it tonight. I wasn't burnt out, I wasn't unhappy, I just wasn't flying. I think I had mistaken the feelings of Happiness and Clip high for the same thing, which made me mistake the feeling of not getting a high as unhappiness.
Agnes Martin once wrote that “the goal of life is happiness”. Not the explosive, all-consuming kind. Just the quiet kind. The kind that doesn't announce itself, in other words, not the insane highs of life that comes momentarily hitting our dopamine receptors like a drug, but a simple feeling like sunlight hitting your face
I was in Whistler on a Wednesday evening in May, shooting with my friends, making art on a mountain. Nobody asked me to be there, nobody was pulling me up that hill. I chose it, the same way I've always chosen it, except now I had the craft to actually do something with it. What once would have floored me is my baseline now. And somewhere on that quiet ride down I stopped seeing that as a problem and started seeing it for what it actually is. You don't mourn the floor rising beneath your feet. You stand on it and reach higher. I had grown, my lack of over the moon excitement from getting a photo wasn’t the same standard as it was, and that lack of high was still something to be happy about.
I was happy. Not the kind that knocks you over, not a clip high or a cover or abrand deal. Just the quiet, steady kind. The kind that always seems to be thereuntil it isnt. I just needed the mountain and a ride down alone to figure it out.
