What I Learned From 1000 Cups of Espresso
In mid-March of 2020, the world shut down. Now I know what you're thinking, another pandemic story, but it’s not. This really is about rediscovery and letting go of the idea of what I thought made good photographs. But, yes, it all started when the pandemic forced me to stay inside, and all the work that I had lined up for the spring dried up, one assignment after another.
I know myself all too well, I love to work, I love to take photos, and solve problems. I am also inclined to laziness, and it would have been very easy to put down my camera and wait till… But with that waiting comes the ring rust, the slowing down of how to operate a camera, I always tell my students to pick up their cameras every day and take photos or at least fiddle with the camera. Operating your camera should be like breathing, you don’t think about drawing a breath you just do. When you know your camera like breathing you can concentrate on the image, the composition, and the emotion you are trying to convey.
I had to find a subject in the house that I could practice on, and it surely wasn’t my child—point a camera in his direction, and the boy scatters. It had to be simple enough to do, yet still give me something to think about. I took walks through empty streets, that became old fast, how many discarded surgical gloves or car-flattened N95s could I shoot?
A few days later while deciding what vacant street to walk down, and sipping my morning cortado, I remembered the photos of my empty espresso cups I photographed during a trip to Italy. The cups were used to help illustrate my non-shooting days, the days when you were just traveling, someplace between point A and point B. That was the “ahh-ha!” moment. Just shoot your cup each day, and each day I did. Some days there were more than the cup, but the cup shot from above with a square crop ƒ4.0 was always consistent.
I figured 10-20 cups then life as we once knew it would get back on track. Well, I was wrong and 1000 cups of espresso later I have learned a lot about myself and photography.
In 2010, I left the newspaper industry where I had worked as a staff photographer for 20 years. I began to pursue different types of clients, where I strived for technical perfection and achieved it. Two years earlier something happened that changed us all: the iPhone was born and with it mobile photography. Social media and Instagram followed, and soon I was scrolling through thousands of images each day, though shooting less. I thought, “Why bother taking that photo, the 100 other people around me just did.”
So what have I learned from 1000 cups of espresso? For one, I learned to take the photo even if a hundred others have. I learned that 100 megapixels of sheer mind-blowing sharpness and detail can sometimes give away everything and leave nothing for the viewer to wonder. I learned that I don’t always need my tripod, image stabilization, or a fast shutter. I learned to be excited about photos again, the way I felt when I was 15 at 3 AM with flashlights and a camera loaded with Kodak Gold film. It was that wonder that fell by the wayside, and it was that wonder that made me photograph anything and everything that looked remotely interesting.
Taking a photo each day to be published is a challenge. The first weeks were easy, but after a while, I had to start thinking about making the images better. I made props and stands to float cups, and went into the bedroom, basement, garden, and the beach.
Then there are the images that follow each cup when posted on Instagram as a carousel. This is where I really started to rediscover myself. I stopped shooting for everyone else and began shooting just for me. I chose lenses more for their imperfections and character than edge-to-edge sharpness, and the results were more emotional images, less literal, and more allegorical. In turn, I am happier with my photographs than I have been in years.
The pandemic is essentially over, and we have found ways to live in a new normal. I will continue to practice this visual language, who knows where the next 1000 empty cups will lead?
New York based photographer Michael McWeeney’s fascination with pictures started at the age of five when he began clipping and collecting photos that appealed to him from newspapers and magazines. Michael received his first camera at age eleven. Since then he has captured the moments that define who we are and the places that shape us. His photographs tell people’s stories, connecting us via the radius of visual communication. He started his career as a photojournalist in New York for 20 years before becoming a freelance photographer. He has received commissions from and exhibited work at the Alice Austen House Museum, The Architectural League of New York, the Noble Maritime Collection, The City of New York, The Staten Island Museum, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Michael studied Art and Advertising Design at New York City Tech, and photography at Parsons School of Design. He is currently the Sunday Photo Editor for the New York Post. www.michaelmcweeney.nyc @havana1933
