Resistance, according to Steven Pressfield is very clever and dastedly evil and will take on other forms to stop us from achieving the life we should be living. Pressfield is the author of The War of Art, a book introduced to me by Pixelated Image’s David duChemin. Thursday evening I was early on my way to have dinner with friends so I stopped in at Chapters to see if the book was available. It was so no sign of Resistance there. Earlier that day I finalized arrangements to drop by my brother-in-law’s Friday workshop to take photos of their team which I could then use for this week’s Microstock assignment. They were going to be at the Terminal City Club which we thought would make for a good backdrop for MS business photos. Resistance must have been putting together its plan of attack then because it was all going too smoothly.
Sure enough I stepped into the room on Friday when the workshop was over and I saw Resistance sitting there smuggly in the background, laughing by the window, and feet up on the table. It was all wrong, horribly wrong. Self-Doubt, one of the many allies of Resistance, was also there. It was whispering that there was no way I could do this with no lighting equipment, all sorts of artifacts on the walls, the wrong wardrobe colours, and the “post-workshop look” all around the room including the models. I heard it but set about staging my location to shoot and taking a couple of photos to test the light. It wasn’t ideal but I thought it might work so when I was ready I gathered everyone around the table and started to shoot. That’s when Self-Doubt and Resistance realized that they were being ignored and they decided to turn up the volume by enlisting the support of the models to act as roadblocks. What was supposed to be a photo shoot of corporate teamwork turned into a “how do you make a frog with your fingers” session. It was the end of the day at the end of a very long few weeks for this hardworking team so I couldn’t blame them for wanting to unwind and have a little fun. They were after all doing this for free and as a favour to me. That’s when Resistance saw an opening and asked Victimhood to step in and pinch hit. It happened so quickly and without realizing it, I was sitting on Victimhood’s lap as the dummy does with the ventriloquist. I went into passive agressive mode and declared that I was done as the photo shoot wasn’t going to work giving the excuse that the lighting was all wrong. The round of applause by Resistance, and its allies Self-Doubt and Victimhood were now being joined by Rationalization. It was deafening.
What came next was Divine. You see Resistance had not counted on Conquerors to intercede, like my brother-in-law David who has already travelled this path in his own career. David wanted to figure out a way to make it work for me and in another split second moment, I decided not to fuel Resistance by giving into my fears. When he asked me what was not working, I said that we were at cross purposes. It was very difficult for me to get the shots I needed for my assignment when they were there to have fun and plus the lighting was not right. He sprang into action and so did his team. We reconfigured the shooting location in the room to make the most of the light from the windows and positioned ourselves with the large projection screen behind the models to serve as a seamless white. Everyone waited for direction from me where to stand, how to pose, and when to smile. No more fooling around; this was serious business. I didn’t even realize until much later that Resistance had slipped out of the room taking all the Allies with it. Not defeated I am sure for it will come again.
>Have you ever noticed that the word “evil” is the word “live” spelt backwards? Pressfield says “Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” To yield to Resistance is to give up the life we are supposed to live. As long as I believe this is the life for me, I will take on Resistance and all its Allies to do this work.
P.S. The critiques are now in for my assignment. For this one here is some of what Pete had to say: “Hey for not having lights you did a nice job. I’d like to see the man on camera’s left, hands on the table doing something. Good composition.” The bottom line is I need the proper lighting and to pay attention to the things that kill an image for the MS market.
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