Inspiration

I could say that photography was my first love. It started when I was around six and my grandfather gave me his old Russian film camera, a Zorki. Although now it’s broken and lies somewhere in the back of a drawer in my parents house, I remember it perfectly, like we remember every detail about our loves. When I started going to school I also enrolled in the photography club of the school. In spite of this early start and the fact that a camera has always accompanied me along the years, it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I took photography more seriously.

Follow your dreams

It all started with this blog. It was just a small step, but often this is all it takes. Soon I found myself taking more and more steps on this new, unexpected road, which seemed like being built with each step I took. I bought a DSLR camera, I enrolled in a photography course, I learned more about blogging, I changed the look of my blog, I began writing more, I took a Photoshop course, I bought one more lens, I read books and blogs about photography and learned (and I am still learning) with growing enthusiasm, all this while working a full time job and doing other activities: learning French (because I’m living in Belgium), traveling, doing yoga and all the rest you have to do for a living. (You might want to read this other post I wrote about finding your passion or your true calling). Now I find myself musing – half scared, half confident – with the idea of doing this for a living.

Go against the current

It all started with a small step in a new direction. But this road is not always easy. There are moments when I feel I will never be good enough or that I should just drop it and stick to a safe job that pays the bills. In moments like this, it is so important to find support and recover the inner strength to keep going. I am lucky to have good friends who support me. I am also inspired and motivated by other people’s stories. I see that many people who are doing creative work are going through the same process. Lately I’ve been reading some articles and a book that inspired and motivated me, which I would like to share with you:

Keep on looking

- an interview with Mary Jo Bang, On Learning, Self-Discipline and Taking the Road Less Traveled from which I quote:
“If that desire is strong enough, and persistent enough, you do whatever you have to do to teach yourself how to cross over from being a reader to being a reader who is a writer. [...] The same was true of photography. It took me a long time to make the photographs I saw in my mind. [...] Over time, what was on the film and the photographic paper more and more resembled what I’d imagined when I looked into the viewfinder. And I saw how, if you steadily worked at something, what you don’t know gradually erodes and what you do know slowly grows and at some point you’ve gained a degree of mastery. What you know becomes what you are. You know photography and you are a photographer. You know writing and you are a writer.”

- a speech by Ira Glass on the importance of doing a lot of work when you want to be good at something (a writer in his case):

“…it’s like there’s a gap. That for the first years you are making stuff, what you are making isn’t so good. It’s not that great, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. And your taste is good enough, that you can tell that what you are making, is kind of disappointment to you, you know what I mean? A lot of people never get past that phase and a lot of people at that point they quit. [...] the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you are going to finish one story. Because it’s only actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you are making will be as good as your ambitions.“

Find inspiration

- an article on how to deal with mistakes, by Brooke Snow, a photographer whose style and photography tips and honesty I really like: How being easier on ourselves has more rewards than we allow ourselves to know

- a post about Being a Beginner. by Gwen Bell, whose tough and authentic questions always make me think about what I really want and answer honestly (it’s more difficult than it sounds!):

“What can you quit right now? What scares you to learn? Can you start today?”

- The Artist’s Way : A Course in Discovering and Recovering your Creative Self by Julia Cameron, which points out the obstacles we are facing on the way of becoming an artist; many times these obstacles are created by ourselves, because it can be very scary to actually go for it and follow your dreams:

“But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano/act/paint/write a decent play?” Yes… the same age you will be if you don’t.

- Allowing dreams by Susannah Conway, whose heartfelt online course Unravelling I have just followed.

“But today I realised that i’ve reached a place where i’ve let go of some expectations – of what my life should be looking like by now, of what i am capable of doing, of who i could be. I’m starting to embrace what is, and that includes giving my dreams more space to breathe.”

More inspiring quotes on my other blog.

For the love of photography: spending hours trying to capture the free falling of a leaf

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