reflections

There is the old adage that a picture’s worth a thousand words but great photographers often have wonderful stories beyond their images and once in a while, they share them with the rest of the world. In each of these stories are pearls of wisdom some of which I thought I’d share with you today. Jasmine Star, a California-based wedding photographer, wrote a blog posting last week titled The Day I Quit Photography. It is a baring of the soul that reminds us this road we’re on has been well-travelled. The heartwrenching details are nothing short of inspirational. You’ll find yourself cheering her on and when you look at her images you know why they are so good–nobody pays their dues and gets nothing in return.

Jen Lemen is a Shutter Sister and part of the group of gals who recently won the Name Your Dream Assignment. Earlier this month she pondered what to do when you want to be quiet in a blogging world. An interesting question indeed but not the gem that drew my attention. In her post, she shared a little bit about her life story and what you’ll remember is that there is far, far more in the journey than just the destination. The details of our lives are woven into the richness of our craft. In the rush to get there–make this a profession–we (ok…I) can lose sight of the ingredients that set us apart, make us uniquely special, and are ultimately reflected through our camera lens.

A woman that needs no introduction is Annie Leibovitz but let me introduce you to a piece about her produced for the PBS American Masters series called Life Through a Lens. It was on our Knowledge Network TV channel a while ago. I recorded it but didn’t get a chance to watch it until last week. Then I watched it twice and promptly went to on to Amazon.ca to buy the DVD so I could watch it anytime. There was so much in there that I found facinasting mostly because Annie Leibovitz shoots people and I don’t–although I am still trying to figure out why and hey, why not? One of the many lines that caught my attention came at the very end: “I don’t have two lives…this is one life”. Words reminiscient of Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art where he talks about how creative people often have two lives, the one we live and our unlived creative one.

One last story I want to share with you–if you haven’t already read it–and that is over on David duChemin’s blog called How I Got to the Why. Read the whole thing but when you get to the last line that’s when you say “AMEN”. David’s story is the sort of tale that you come back to re-read whether you’ve hit a bump on the road or you are well on the way to being successful. The former because it motivates us to keep going and the latter because it reminds us of the importance of humility.

All these stories are food for thought in my learning journey. I hope you find something in them for yourself and if you do, think about letting Jasmine, Jen, and David know by leaving a comment on their blogs.