A dear friend and faithful follower in my photography classes mentioned to me this past week that “Someone (meaning me) has taught her to not simply just take pictures, but to create images.”
I’ve been thinking about her insightful comment quite a bit since then and she is absolutely right. All of us are on this wonderful journey of photography and much of what photography offers us is an ability to discover our own selves. Having a camera in-hand encourages us to get out there and capture life as we see it. Whether it be landscapes, nature, architecture, street photography or travel.
It takes time to find out just what it is that speaks to your inner artist. And the only way to discover it is to photograph anything and everything and you’ll start to find those things that you don’t like photographing. By process of elimination, you’ll find your passion and your images will reflect how well you connect with your subject.
As with anything, it takes time and effort to achieve greatness. Nothing comes easy and it takes a lot of work. To really jump start your skills as a photographer you can take on the challenge of a Project 365 where you take a picture once a day for a year. Yes, within a week I’m sure you’ll be cursing the day I mentioned Project 365. But if you stick with it I can assure you that you’ll become so proficient with your camera and quickly changing camera settings, and dramatically improve your post processing skills.
In the past year I’ve seen my work become more intentional and focused in nature. I’m now creating photography projects that I work on slowly and with thought. One of these is a floral art set which I’ve mentioned earlier. As with the butterflies I captured this past weekend. It’s more about the quality of the images I capture versus the quantity. “Creating Images…Not just taking pictures.”
But I couldn’t have gotten to this point if I hadn’t done all of the hard work before. And so I challenge you to challenge yourself to find your inner artist. Go forth and capture the world !
Categories: digital art, Flowers
Emily Carter ~ Nature as Art 
Your work is inspirational Emily.
That means so much. Thank you very much. 🙂
I absolutely love that penultimate sentence, “And so I challenge you to challenge yourself to find your inner artist.” I’ve spent most of my career doing analytic work, rather than creative work to the point where I questioned whether I had an artistic side at all. As I have gotten deeper into photography the last five years or so, I’ve learned that photography allows me to express myself in a different way, almost like speaking another language. The coolest thing about photography is that it allows me to embrace my techno-geeky side when I talk about gear and settings and such, while simultaneously permitting me to be as artsy and creative as I dare. I am mindful now that almost every time that I press the shutter release I am making a series of creative choices in my camera settings and in my framing of the subject that will influence the final image (and that’t not even taking into account all of the decisions involved in post-processing). Thanks, Emily, for prompting us to challenge ourselves in this direction.
What a thoughtful and insightful reply Mike, and if I may I’d like to continue this discussion using your wonderful comment. It is so true, the more we understand the technical aspects the freer we become for our creative side. Thank you so very much!
Stunning images and inspiring commentary. I whole heartedly agree with your words – it’s not what we see, but how we see it!
You’re absolutely right Beth and thank you very much. I’m continuing this thought on the next few posts as well.
Emily, these are breathtaking, such captured beauty. And beautiful wisdom to accompany them.
You are always so kind to me. I’m blessed to have you in my life. Thank you Terri.