photo: The Getty, Los Angeles, 2008

A few years ago I was fortunate to take part in a two-week National Endowment for the Arts workshop in Los Angeles for theater writers.

Not writers of theater, but writers about theater.

One of the high points of the experience was that every day, first thing in the morning, all two dozen of us middle age writers would troupe up the street in our sweats and sneakers to a nearby dance studio, where we spent an hour learning about movement from Tom Leabhart.

Leabhart, a CalArts professor,  is a mime who has studied his art like a martial arts master. He can, I believe, make any muscle in his body move in perfect isolation from the others.

In our work with him, he had us each devise a simple physical routine, which we were instructed to go back to our hotel rooms and practice repeatedly every night, until we knew the movements as closely as breathing.

We were to practice our routines, he said, to boredom, through boredom and beyond.

That notion of going “through boredom” is useful in photography as well as acting.

So much of society’s concept of art depends on inspiration. Inspiration is a great thing, though to quote Chuck Close (and others), “Inspiration is for amateurs. I don’t have time.”

But greatness comes from the deep understanding that comes of steady practice.

I’ve been trying to reach that point — beyond boredom — with some of my photography, taking not quite repetitive images and printing and coloring them even when I can barely stand to look at them anymore. Just doing the work. Shooting four rolls a week, developing every Saturday, printing half a dozen on Sunday, hand coloring those prints during the week. Same subject, one that’s always close at hand here: The forest.

The funny thing is, I keep discovering more and more to learn about those photographs. Even in boredom.