Jill Rants and Raves: you were famous once

At a party recently, a friend was introducing me to others she knew. One woman looked at me intently. 'Oh, yeah. Yeah. You were famous once' she said. Yeah, that's me, I said. Once famous. Twice shy.

Yesterday I was reading about a show of Irving Penn images, an astonishing collection of photographs taken in the early 50's of tradespeople, small business people, crafts people, individual artisans and blue collar workers; boxers; dance teachers; nurses. The collection, called 'Small Trades' was shot entirely in natural light in front of an unevenly painted back cloth under an open tent which could be erected in any situation. The images are riveting and I felt that familiar longing, an insatiable hunger to be back behind a camera taking photos that matter to me, and the desire to just stand the subject, naked of colour and embellishment in front of a dirty grey backdrop, looking directly at me, bringing just what there is, nothing more.

I never made a good living as a photographer, wasn't working in the commercial or advertising worlds, worked for nothing most of the time, on the promise of payment at some undisclosed time in the future, did favors for emerging authors, had no mentor, sugar mama or philanthropist, spent more on film and processing than the check handed to me with a sly apologetic smile. Even my books, award winning, well-selling photo books, described as brilliant, ground breaking, iconic - left me with fame but no steak.

But I have discovered that if you are going to be broke, you may as well share your life with those who truly appreciate you and whose understanding of fame is approximately zero. Dogs.

And now that I feel that desperate yearning to 'produce' once more, I also know that I am so troubled by what I see, what I know, what I feel about what happens in our animal shelters that I can't focus my lens on anything else. There are nights when I wake sweating, fretting about the years wasted, the time spent on everything but that which made me famous. Have I given up on my life apart from this passion?

When I sleep I dream of a space with a concrete floor and light flooding in and a bed with white sheets in the middle of the room, one leather couch (which I traded for a long time ago) a kitchen and bathroom and a place to photograph taking up the space. A light filled space overlooking a meadow, and coffee in the morning and a birch tree swaying. And my cats and dogs around, peeing outside, meandering along the gravel paths, leaning on a door frame, stretched on a rug, watching something they see in their minds eye.

And then my mind is filled with what I saw yesterday. Kennel upon kennel of dogs going nowhere, sitting in their own feces, the kennels divided into two to double up intake space, kittens waiting for death in plastic vari-kennels in the corridors, a 3 pound chihuahua shivering in terror huddled in the corner in a metal cage, he had pissed in his water dish and the towel he sat on was soaked, and he snapped at my hand as I moved towards him. The 9 month old Great Dane pup was 80 pounds of emaciated skin and bone, too afraid to move forward in her cage, the pitbulls one next to the other next to the other like a line up of the usual suspects, the stench of shit and piss, a cat lying dead in a humane trap sitting on a table, and the 'surgery' room filled with animals readied for euthanasia. The kennel attendant with tired eyes and wearied by his task muttered as he led us through the chaos 'disposable, they're just disposable, cats and dogs, in our society', as he contemplated his endless task of swimming against a tide, a flood of animals discarded.

I sometimes wonder if it all was about getting to this point, where ego and pride have no place. Where I am only really happy when the days involve making a difference in just one life, a life that will not turn to me and tell me that I was famous once. But I still have that longing to look through the lens and see the picture I want to take. Are these two things so at odds with one another that I will never resolve this?