From Pucci to Pudding

committing to dreams

i'm off next week to a photography workshop in nyc that has been a dream of mine for a couple years. schedule, money, and various other nagging doubts could have continued to keep me from committing but i realized i was essentially committing to pursue my dream... or not. it will be a week of stretching and growing pains and who knows. i am going as an open vessel... experiencing whatever comes. i have this feeling it will be shifting not just my photography but perhaps aspects of my life as well...

first rays

magic hour for me is before the dawn... it is rich, mysterious, pregnant with creative possibility.

catching the light

ernie is a practiced catcher of the morning light...

night lights

i have been looking for inspiration in photography. my city, atlanta, holds very little inspiration for me. i do find it energizing to see everyday items and places with new eyes and to shoot them from a fresh perspective.

sometimes inspiration comes in words and wisdoms from unexpected sources. i recently ran across these two quotes from photographer steve mccurry's blog and they got my creative juices stirring. as a runner, i always preferred to run as the world awakened. there is magic in the dawn, in that transition from night to morning. likewise in the evenings, the most beautiful time is for me when the last light lingers before dark consumes the day. thank you for the night lights inspiration and here's to renewed shooting.

Night, when words fade and things come alive.
When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again.
When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
- Vincent Van Gogh

vincent versace on successful seeing

natural light photographer vincent versace gave an interview on the podcast, the candid frame, that gave me pause and inspired me to listen several times to make sure i absorbed what he said. since his thoughts on successful seeing as photographers and as artists resonated so vividly with me, i wanted to share a few points from that conversation.

• our job as photographers is to do right by what we photograph.
• interesting plainness is the most difficult thing to achieve. but there is sublime beauty in that. as photographers, our gift and our repsonsibility is to see that and, with what and how we shoot, to say, "take pause."
• don't previsualize the photograph but previsualize being amazed taking the photograph.
• are we taken by the photograph? that's when we press the shutter. photography is experiencing. there is no perfect photograph. the most important thing is to move the viewer.
• the more creative things we do other than our chosen way of expressing our creative calling, the more creative we will be. a groove can become a rut. but diversifying our creative passions serves to feed, boost, nourish our chosen path.
• we range between abject insecurity to uncomfortable arrogance. the best place is in the middle, taking joy in the practice of our creative pursuit celebrating that we are as good as we can be in the moment.
• in the non-art world, vulnerability is a weakness, being emotionally open is a weakness, innocence is a weakness. but in the world of art, vulnerability, innocence and emotional openness are all strengths. the most successful art is the art that gets to you, moves you. since we move between both worlds, as artists, we must reconcile that internally and embrace those qualities that enable us to be successful in the creative world.
• photographs about technique are not moving. techniue doesn't supplant vision, the ability to see.

morning light

visual poetry for friday... happy weekend:)

san diego seeing

i had the good fortune to spend an hour strolling through the prado in san diego last week. approaching magic hour just before sunset, the light and lines caught my eye. it was one of those interludes where i felt my seeing as fertile... i could feel myself creatively recharging.

i also heard someone recently say he thinks of photographs as sketches--capturing not full-blown stories but glimpses, perhaps yielding a look at a more profound relationship or dynamic than initially meets the eye. intriguing. and i identify with it.

thought i would share a few moments of san diego seeing.

ernie in the early morning

the morning pink glow in winter is gorgeous. i love the early light. as ernie blossoms into his love-filled, trusting, curious, impish, playful, handsome self, i am inspired to catch his energy in different ways.

 

seeing freshly

photographer ernst haas described his perspective in shooting in such a poetic articulation that when i read it for the first time it impressed me as capturing part of the mystery of creativity. in "about color photography" in 1961, haas expressed his process thusly:

Bored with its obvious reality, I find my fascination in transforming it into a subjective point of view. Without touching my subject I want to come to the moment when, through pure concentration of seeing, the composed picture becomes "more made than taken." Without a descriptive caption to justify its existence, it will speak for itself--less descriptive, more creative; less informative, more suggestive--less prose, more poetry.

it occurs to me that by practicing a bit of this perspective--viewing the everyday scenes we may grow innured to in our routines as instead suggestive, creative, poetic--we could understand something new about what we may take for granted, connect on a new level to something we thought was familiar, to see freshly. and like a dash of fresh herbs to brighten up a dish, seeing freshly is a vibrant note to include in our everyday sustenance.

reflections

i am aware in the past week or two of a focus on a message i would benefit from getting--what i don't like in others is really my unacknowledged and unwanted traits being reflected back to me.

when i embrace my internal leading lady, i am positive, unruffled, see challenges as opportunities and see and feel the best in people, even when i am conscious of irritations i may have with how they are being with me. who i am being--grounded, joyful--is reflected back to me.

on the other hand, when i embrace my inner needy and ungrounded damsel in distress, i see without fail that who i am being, that nervous energy, is reflected back to me. we each have the power with our energy to transform an interaction, a room, a situation to a positive experience or to a muddy icky experience.

i see it with groups of people... when i'm stressed and internally ruffled, things don't go smoothly. when i take a deep breath and focus on how we can move through challenges with a smile, things go surprisingly well. i see it with my puppy ernie. he reflects calm and confidence back to me just as much as he reflects stubborn and irritated back to me. interesting that i have a pup who is strong-willed and who needs to build his confidence. we do get the dogs we need, don't we.

so i'm focused on seeing reflections in my relationships. how people are being with me is likely a reflection of how i am being with them. and it occurs to me that when i am shooting photography, that i am drawn to seeing reflections there as well. reflections on people's faces when they are gazing at others. the dynamics, the unseen energy as seen in a still frame. as we often have our own answers to the lessons we most benefit from learning, i take this as something to watch and learn from...