Allright - my fault - I'll try to do it more simple:
What happened to YOUR (Mr. Rob Campbells) photography in 2013?
Cheers
~Chris
To give a straight answer: I've been taking photographs, one way or another, since around 1946. From that perspective, 2013 is no different other than a lot of experience has come along and a lot of different genres too. Some working years were very good and some rotten; the post-work era has been boring, on the whole, not because of photography per se but because of the lack of commissioned work, without which photography has had little relevance to living. At least, during the retired years whilst I still had a wife.
Since she died, photography has battled to be a filler of voids. It does that to an extent, probably saved my sanity, but as for being a driving force, them days is gone, man, gone. What I'd like to shoot, never wanted to top shooting, is now well out of my reality; what I face is the inevitable truth of the Donovan Syndrome.
So what about 2013? Not much; just another dull year like so many.
Finding a substitute photographic theme helps focus direction, but it doesn't prevent the realization of the pointlessness of it all coming to mind. I don't suppose I ever felt I'd lost my ability to make an exposure, but I do know that when there's no commercial imperative...
There isn't much pleasure in just pointing and going click. Any fool can, and does do that. Once you know how to do it, make a photograph as something distinct from a snap, you lose the challenge of that part of the thing and get to the stage where you need something worth the expended energy and unpleasantness of computer-gazing. At least, I do.
Rob C