Pretty Pictures Aren’t Enough

Pretty pictures aren’t enough to make me satisfied with my work any longer. And photographing what I love in the same old way just doesn’t excite me like it once did.

As we grow as artists and people, I think our reach always exceeds our grasp. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be growing. Think of the infant learning to walk. The desire to stand upright and walk comes before the ability to do so. It takes practice and repetition, falling down and getting up again. Then one day the first steps are taken. Joy! And before long the child is running. Walking is no longer the goal. Now there is another goal that builds on the skills already learned.

So it is with art.

I believe in photographing what I love and what brings me joy. But I’ve noticed recently that I’ve begun to tire of photographing cut flowers or nature in the same old way. I’ve taken thousands of flower and nature photos in my search for the perfect way to convey the beauty I see and feel. But it’s no longer enough.

I still love the time I spend in nature in the solitude of the woods, breathing in the scents, sounds and sites of flowers, plants, trees, and lakes, and experiencing the light as it changes from sunrise to sunset and from moment to moment. And while I love the photographs I make as portrayals of the beauty I experience, I want to do more than this. I feel a yearning to create rising deep from within me. It’s about creating something that tells a story that matters, or makes me feel something real and deep and true.

“Love is the spirit that motivates the artist’s journey.” — Eris Maisel

I need to create art that says something from my heart or answers the question, “So what?”

What am I trying to express? What am I saying in my work? Where is my voice in this work I do?

The yearning is expressing itself in my dreams at night and in my daydreams during the daytime. But it has a distance to travel before I realize it.

So I listen with my whole heart, practice patience and discernment, continue to practice what I know, and live the question every day. What shape will it take? How will I know it?

I’ll know it in my heart.

“What we really want to do is what we were really meant to do.” — Julia Cameron

This transition from being perfectly happy creating pretty, technically good photographs to wanting to say something more with my art is a struggle to find and develop my voice. It is the journey of all artists. And it may take a lifetime. I hope it takes the rest of my lifetime as the journey is what matters, not the destination.

“Artists are people who make art. Art is not a gene or a specific talent … Art is the unique work of a human being, work that touches another … Art is who we are and what we do and what we need. Art isn’t a result; it’s a journey. The challenge of our time is to find a journey worthy of your heart and your soul.“ — Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception

In the meantime, I still see beauty wherever I go and like to capture and share that beauty with you here in my blog.

May you continue to learn and grow in whatever you do. May your journey matter more than your destination.

May you walk in beauty.