Moving with the times
February 1, 2016
2015 was a very full year, full of changes, full of beginnings, full of all sorts of life altering events. I felt like I was moving at the speed of light some weeks and others were just nice and slow. Needless to say I was busy with my camera all through the holidays, lots of family pictures, lots of editing, many many pictures for a lot of great people. In the middle of all of this, I am still working on (and probably will forever) learning new things about photography and my own style.
And that’s sometimes the best and worst part about art in any form, figuring out and trusting your own style. Realizing and accepting that I do what I do, and I am not going to be Ansel Adams or Sir Simon Mardsen even though both are my biggest inspirations. One of my ‘modules’ for my current educational adventure focuses on the Zone System which was greatly used by Mr. Adams in his phenomenal photography. While struggling through that lesson (seriously, you will know what I am talking about if you are currently crying in a ball under the table trying to get through the assignment for this one), I came face to face with that truth. I am not Ansel Adams, and I never will be. His work though can and will always inspire me, but my work will always be my own. And that’s what make me unique.
That is something that I see not only myself struggling with, but many people around me. Why did we start trying to ‘be’ someone else, and not who we are? Emulating the popular and the ones that seem to have what we ‘want’, changing and settling for what we believes others expect us to be, instead of saying ‘NO’. This is what I want, and I am going to be brave enough to say it and go for it with zero apologies. Being strong enough to accept who you are, going after what you (and you alone) want and/or need is a beautiful thing and that should be encouraged more instead of the plastic and empty things we have come to covet and use to fill in the voids.
I was recently at an event that honoured and awarded the arts, and the artists that created it. It was amazing to see the people live and breath who and what they are. You could see in the eyes of the finalists and award recipients the pure passion they had for something that was truly a part of them, and how much they loved it and how it shaped them. They were all their own kind of unique, and nothing like anyone else. True, they all had their inspirations, people they looked up to and maybe at one point tried to be. But you could almost feel the individuality in these people. The lack of fear of judgement, the unbridled ‘just going for it’ attitude, not trying to ‘be’ someone for anyone one else other than themselves - and it was inspiring.
Coming back home after a few days of chaos, I started going through some ‘goofing’ pictures I was playing with in the snow. Looking at these small and fragile little snowflakes I thought we are not that unlike them. We are all unique in our own way, our own edges and curves, broken pieces, whole pieces, and only here for a short time. But no one snowflake tries to ‘be’ another, they just fall where they are, and never say sorry for being unique.
So for 2016, even though I am not one for new year’s resolutions, I am going to just say bugger it, sorry is not option. I am who I am and I see and create through my own eyes. I will continue to do what I love even if it’s just for me, doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters - do I look at what I have accomplished and created at the end of my life and say ‘I should have, could have, would have but I was afraid….or look at it with love and pride and say, ‘That was one hell of a ride! I wanna do that again!’.
“I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.”—Ansel Adams