Just over three months ago, I stopped posting photos. I fell behind a few days, then a week, and then I realized that the joy had left the process. I’m not entirely sure why.

Computers had gotten reconfigured and I was editing on a small screen, which was tedious. Politics was flooding the basement of my mind. Some software ideas expanded in my head and took up some creativity processing centers. And all the images seemed the same. I’d been posting daily images for roughly two decades, and suddenly the spark was gone. I also wasn’t taking many photos. If the clouds put on a show, I’d grab a shot, but that was about it. That’s about all I know, really.

So I waited. I went to a wedding and took some photos, which breathed some life back into my process. Summer clouds rolled in, which are always a relief from the searing blue, bone-dry skies of summer. The full moon rose between the mountains and a cloud layer. And yesterday I went to my favorite coffee shop and saw the light reflecting off a wooden table top, a painted brick wall, with silhouettes cutting out designs from the big picture window, and I pulled out my phone to work the angles.

It seems balance has been restored and the spark has returned.