..eXpeRiEnCe..

This week, I have feel torn and conflicted. My path seemed to take a sharp right turn into an unknown and unfamiliar area that I fear I don't know how to find my way in. While pondering paths and journeys this past while, I fell upon a quote that I felt pertained quite a bit to this thought train.

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain." --Unknown

I experienced a loss last week that rocked my world to my core. It changed how I viewed life and things around me. How I viewed photography and my purpose in life and what goals I had made or were making to help me achieve them. I began to think about what I knew about myself as an individual and an artist.

As an artist and an individual we are all on a path. Some of ours curve around in circles others have tangents and some just stay right on a straight line. Things that happen around us effect each of us to our core. There is something about experiences that just have a way of changing you. These experiences can make you do a u-turn or even stop in your tracks and not move forward for a while. But there is something to be learned from the crazy tangents that life has a way of taking. You must learn who you are. Once you know who you are, then always be yourself in your journey. You are the only person qualified to be you, and people will notice. They will want to be around you because you are you. So for me as an artist and trying to figure out where to go from this bombshell, there is one thing that I know. I am me. I will always be me, and that is the most important thing. It doesn't matter what happens to me or what people think, because the only person whose opinion truly matters is my own. So where do I go from here.. well there is only one way. Forward. I will continue to do what I love and what I have been doing and just allow this experience to be absorbed and used in my art.

So to all of you out there.. take the good with the bad and let them make you who you are, remember.. you're the best person qualified for the job.

..thoughts..

Lately I have been thinking alot about how I feel in regards to myself. After going through what I guess one could call a rough patch, I decided that it was time to get up dust myself off and try again. Being happy is a million times better than being mad and sad. So in efforts to do this I have started a whole bunch of new goals. One is to always find myself happy and find inspiration to do this where ever I can.

Today in a class we watched a film regarding cinematography. They interviewed several cinematographers about their style, working habits and lessons that they had learned as an artist. One artist stood out to me, I don't know his name.. unfortunately but I felt connected to him on a level. Most everything he said I connected with immediately. One thing he talked about was the importance of being yourself. That everyone has a great dream of being famous, but your not famous at first. The only way to be good at something and to be famous is to be yourself and be true to yourself. He stressed how important it was to be true to yourself before you begin work, during the work and after it all. The reason people hire you or want you to do their work is because you are yourself not a copycat of someone else that they could already get.

I think that as photographers, we are constantly striving for the next big thing to give you notice or an edge. Many times we are copying or borrowing ideas from other artists around us. This I think isn't necessarily a bad thing, inspirations I believe come from anywhere and you should use it when you find it, but we need to learn how to take what is someone else's and make it our own. We need to learn how to be ourselves.

So to all you out there... BE YOURSELF. You are the only one fit for the job and I think you have greatness to share with others that only you being yourself could give.