Category Archives: inspiration
10 New Years Resolutions Every Photographer Should Make
1. I will learn how to use my camera.
2. I will not use the Auto setting on my camera.
3. I will not use on-camera flash.
4. I WILL NOT BE HINDERED BY THE GEAR I DO NOT HAVE.
5. I will shoot in RAW.
6. I will learn how to process my shots.
7. I will share my photos with others on the web.
8. I will accept critiques of my work.
9. I will set goals and be proactive about my photography career.
10. I will connect with other photographers.
You can read up on these resolutions in detail in this article by Lisa Bettany. I have never been to her site before reading this post but will most certainly take the time to look through and see what other delicious tid bits I’ve been missing. Resolution #4 is one that I personally struggle with. Maybe it’s because I had the liberty of playing with so much expensive equipment in my heydays that I think I need more than what I have to be successful, but so many amazing photographs have been made with just a hole in a box so I think I should be able to do just fine with my Nikon even though everyone talks crap about it compared to Canon. I’m one of them. But who cares what kind of gear you use. What’s important is what comes out of it.
Here’s to getting out of my own way!
Sidenote: One of my pet peeves is when someone says they “edit their photos,” when they really mean “process their photos.” Editing is the act of selecting the images you want to work with from your days’ shoot…”Editing down to 20 images and then processing them in photoshop.” I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s someone who’s not in the photo business but just thought I’d throw the correct industry terminology out there.
Creative’s Block
As it turns out, I am my own worst enemy.
A new acquaintance of mine wrote that “admitting your insecurities isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength.” And though it makes much sense, it’s sometimes hard to be strong when you know you’re weak.
I’ve been struggling greatly with self-doubt lately, mostly in the business areas of my life. I think I really felt it at the writer’s conference when I was among all of these seriously accomplished writers which I probably should’ve seen as inspiration but instead let it make me feel insecure. I have a degree in journalism but a passion for photography. Though the two definitely go hand-in-hand, I’m terribly worried about becoming a Jane of two trades and master of neither.
I picked up a book many moons ago called The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. It was in the Self-Help section which I never thought I’d find myself perusing. Never really gave it a chance but definitely felt the need to pick it up recently. It’s nicely set up in that it’s almost like a devotional…most of the suggestions/realizations fit on a page so it doesn’t have to be read chapters at a time for you to get anything out of it. As the one line review that is quoted on the cover suggests, it really is “a vital gem…a kick in the ass.”–Esquire.
Despite my self-deprication and nervousness which left my palms sweaty all day, my class (the one that I co-taught) at the conference went really well. They even applauded us at the end (out of pity, perhaps) but I’m sure the students could tell that I was terribly nervous off the bat. I’ve always thought that I wanted to teach, and still think that I do, but maybe next time to a group of students who are younger than me…I think the bulk of my nervousness was from standing in front of a group that was older which made me feel less authoritative. Also, I’m short. And sometimes that translates into making me feel small in other ways too.
There were a few notes that I jotted down from the keynote speaker, radio essayist, Janis Jaquith, not as writing tips but more of things to help you stay positive and realize that it’s ok if the majority don’t get what is that you’re trying to put out there. She spoke about “brain zaps,” which unofficially refers to what happens when you “get” what someone is trying to say…from the mind of the author to your mind, you get it. It zaps. And you re-read it, underline it, copy it into your Moleskine so that you can refer to it again later. Often times I have been afraid to write because really, who cares what I think. But Janice reassured me by simply saying:
“We write to connect to another mind,” and how as a writer (or really, any kind of artist) you amazingly “have a shot at life after death because your audience may not have been born yet…sometimes you’re just waiting for the right reader to come around at the right moment.”
Ironically I’ve recently been seeing a surge in posts/links/articles about self-doubt, tips to get you going (in photography) and I’m hoping these will help me get over this rut. In all honesty, I miss Brooklyn and the experiences it presented, but I think that had a lot to do with my amazing group of friends. It’s hard living miles away from your loved ones who inspire and push you and I have to admit I haven’t found anyone here that has lived up to the great friends that I have in NYC (my husband doesn’t count–he totally inspires me but I need my girlfriends here to talk about stickers and jelly beans too). As I wrap up this post though, I have received an email out of the blue from one of my bestest friends from the city asking if she could come visit me. I think she knew that I needed her even though we hadn’t really corresponded for a few weeks. I love it when you put something out there and just say it to yourself or say out loud to the world…and then all of the sudden you get a response. That happens to me a lot. And Jeff keeps telling me to say that I wish we had a million dollars. If only it really worked like that…
Roanoke Regional Writer’s Conference III — JANUARY 2010
I don’t know where the origin of this quote is from but I’ve seen it posted on various sites without a source. Googled wasn’t any help either. Nonetheless, it put a smile on my face.
Afterword
There was a not-so-fantastic movie that I somehow ended up owning called Alex and Emma about a writer who’s struggling to finish a novel in 30 days so that he can pay back some loan sharks (seriously). The Emma character, played by Kate Hudson, likes to read the ending of books to determine whether or not she’d actually like the book which of course drives Alex, played by Luke Wilson, completely nuts. I’m not necessarily going to share an ending per se, but it is the Afterword of a book. I haven’t read it yet, but found this excerpt to be comforting and can’t wait to pick it up.
From Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, a book about getting a second chance at life the first time around:
I don’t wonder anymore what I’ll tell God when I go to heaven, when we sit in the chairs under the tree, outside the city. I’ll tell him about Mike Barrow riding his bike into the Atlantic Ocean, and about Bob Goff and his family jumping off the dock, waving good-bye to world leaders as they left the lodge. I’ll ask God if he remembers when I fell apart in the hotel room in Los Angeles, and he’ll look comfortingly at me and tell me he was there. I’ll tell him about Jason and his family, about breaking ground on the orphanage in Mexico, and about my friends drilling wells in Africa. I’ll tell him about The Mentoring Project, how quiet the kids are when they meet their mentors, and how we can’t get them to stop talking only a month later. I’ll tell these things to God, and he’ll laugh, I think, and he’ll remind me of the parts I forgot, the parts that were his favorites. We’ll sit and remember my story together and then he’ll stand and put his arms around me and say, “Well done,” and that he liked my story. And my soul won’t be thirsty anymore.
Finally, he’ll turn, and we’ll walk toward the city, a city he will have spoken into existence, a city built in a place where once there’d been nothing.
The Referendum
A great read on the New York Times Happy Days Blog that was brought to my attention via camerondaigle.
The Referendum by Tim Kreider: http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/the-referendum/
In Lieu of Flowers
Mary Morris Lawrence, who was the first female photographer hired by the AP, died on August 12th at age 95.
“When The Associated Press hired her, AP male photographers joked that they no longer would be able to change their pants in the darkroom,” a columnist for the paper wrote in 2007. AP records show Lawrence joined the AP in New York on November 16, 1936 and worked there for three and a half years. She later shot for the tabloid newspaper PM before moving to California to photograph celebrities. Her subjects included Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Leonard Bernsteain, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Salvador Dali and Orson Welles.
I pretty much re-wrote everything that was in the PDN article but you can read the extended version here. Reading through her obituary gives you a great sense of the firey kind of person she was and makes one re-evaluate how one is living their own life. Kicking butt and making differences? Or just barely kicking? I like obits for that very reason…I know it sounds weird but reading about people’s lives and experiences are kind of inspiring. Her obituary ends with the suggestion: “In lieu of flowers, Mary would ask you to join the League of Women Voters, shop at Farmer Joes, write a letter to the editor, or break a glass ceiling!” Love it. I hope my obit will be as full of life as hers was.
