A year with one lens, and what it taught me about distance

Twelve months ago I put every lens but one in a drawer. This is a note on what a single 35 mm did to the way I look, why the drawer is still shut, and what I would say to anyone thinking of trying the same.

The drawer

It started as a packing problem. I was leaving for six weeks with one bag, and the bag was already full of film. So the zoom stayed, the long lens stayed, and the small 35 mm came along because it weighed nothing and I had never given it a fair chance.

The first week was frustrating. Everything I wanted to photograph was either too close or too far. I kept reaching for a lens that was not there, and then standing still, annoyed, while the moment walked off.

A fixed lens does not stop you from getting the picture. It stops you from getting it from where you happen to be standing.

By the second week my feet had learned the distance. I stopped thinking about focal length at all and started thinking about where to stand, which turned out to be the only question that ever mattered.

What changed

Three things, mostly, and none of them were about equipment.

• I walk more and shoot less. A frame now costs a few steps, so I only pay for the ones I want.
• The pictures look like one person made them. The same distance, the same relationship to the street, every time.
• I notice light before I notice subjects. When the framing is settled in advance, the eye has time for something else.

The pictures I stopped taking

The long, compressed street scene is gone. So is the wide, tilted interior that takes in everything and says nothing. I do not miss either. What is left is closer, plainer and easier to believe, and for the work I want to make that is the whole point.

Would I recommend it

For a month, to anyone. For a year, only if you are prepared to lose a few pictures on purpose. The drawer is still there. I check on it sometimes, and then I close it again.