First, a thank you to Stuart Sipahigil for his guest post as part of my series on celebrating success. What a great story to motivate us to push through our doubts on the way to living our dream. I can’t wait to read Part 2 when Stuart shares more of his good news with us so be sure to check on his blog. Today’s image was one of my attempts to shoot a reflection for Stuart’s competition in which I was tickled pink to win Third Place for my image Main Street #1.
One day last summer I found myself lying on the ground in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery trying to photograph a flock of pigeons. We were at Bryan Peterson’s weekend workshop and were trying to re-create one of his iconic images where the flock pigeons flies in front of a wide angle lens. It was interesting that out of the class of about eight people, only my friend Dave Terpening and I were willing to get down on the ground to make the image. Something seems to hold people back from reaching beyond the low hanging fruit to grasp the brass ring.
If I think back to when I first started this journey, I was no different to the other six people in our class. It took me more than a good year before I was willing to step out of my comfort zone and even now I still feel a little anxious before I take a point view that is low to the ground. For the most part, I believe fear holds us back. We worry that people will stare disapprovingly of our behaviour and it is so much easier to act in an acceptable way to obtain an average image.
What would it take to get you to step out of your comfort zone? If you knew that people would stare at your images rather than at you, would you change your point of view not just physically but also mentally? Maybe this photographer can convince you that it is at least worthwhile to try. Meet Kevin Michael Connolly. A friend at work sent me a link to his website and to an article on NPR titled “Legless Photographer Stares Back“. Hopefully this will encourage you to think about your perspective; it certainly challenges me to worry less about what people think of me and more about creating images that grab my attention.
Heh, well in the case of somewhere populated by pigeons, it might be fear of droppings rather than disapproval
Wow, hats off to Kevin Connolly. That’s incredibly inspiring. Have you watched Aimee Mullins on TED.com? Born without shin bones, both legs amputated below the knee, paralympian, model, etc:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/aimee_mullins_the_opportunity_of_adversity.html
Talk about giving adversity the flick! Good on these people. Imagine what the rest of us would do with half their gumption.
Thanks for the link Charlene…I’ll be sure to check it out. As for the pigeon poo, I think you might be right…LOL.
Wonderful story about Kevin. I also agree that we can get some very interesting looks from people as we work around a subject looking for perspectives in our images. Maybe it’s confidence in our abilities that allows us to get down on our bellies and get our pants dirty. The pants will wash.
LOL Monte. That last line is a great title for another blog post not to mention food for thought.
I think it takes determination to step out of your comfort zone. If you are determined to something different, to get the most out of a situation or class then you’ll sum up the courage to speak with a stranger, venture into an alleyway, or lie on a sidewalk. My experience is that once you’ve taken that tep, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.
It’s like Stuart mentioned Ken, once you’ve succeeded, you wonder why you ever doubted it