Engage Fully In the Moment

I had one of those wonderful invitations to engage fully in the moment again this morning when I entered the dining room and noticed the pattern of light glowing through the shade that covers the sliding glass door to the deck. Dramatic shadow and light drew my eye and made me exclaim with delight. I knew I wanted to make an image and play with it. So I grabbed my camera and made a few photos of the light. Then I began to wonder what else I could do with this image.

It looked like this:

I loved the range of dark to light and the somewhat triangular shape on the right side of bright light. The texture of the lines of the folds in the vertical blind drew me in. It was simply a study in light, lines, and shapes.

I wondered what it would look like if I layered the vertical blinds image over one of the peony images I made earlier this week.

This is what the peony image looked like by itself:

After trying several different approaches I ended up with the image you see at the top of this post. It’s not my usual style but I love the drama of the light and the hint of mystery.

Engage Fully In the Moment

I could have seen the light this morning and not stopped to make an image. And I could have stopped with the first version of the image without playing around with creating something new from it. But I would have missed out on a wonderful learning opportunity.

The artistic process (as I see it) is a combination of several elements:

• Practicing and mastering your medium (whatever that medium is). My medium is photography so I need to understand the technical aspects of my camera along with understanding light and being able to use tools like Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop to realize my vision.
• Practice, practice, practice. I have made tens of thousands of images and continue to make images almost every day. If I’m not creating new work, I’m going back to look at and sometimes re-edit old work.
• Play, play, play. Do things that you know will not turn out well and learn from them. Try stuff just for fun without any particular goal in mind. Enjoy the process but don’t worry about the end product.
• Study the work of other artists in your medium and other mediums. Look at work that challenges you, makes you uncomfortable, or that you don’t like, as well as studying work that you like. Being open to new ideas and new ways of thinking can enliven your art.
• Gain an understanding of design principles (starting with simple ideas like the rule of thirds to understanding how the human brain “reads” art and where the eye is drawn). If your art is words or music then other design principles apply but the idea is the same.
• Technical mastery is not enough. The art comes in when you connect personally with whatever it is your are creating and express something that comes from your unique experience and viewpoint. (Don’t worry too much about finding your artistic voice. Your voice is there. It becomes more clear the more you exercise it.)
• Engage fully in the moment noticing forms, shapes, and light that draw you in and understand that THIS MOMENT WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN IN QUITE THE SAME WAY!

This week my peonies were in bloom so I took the time (as I do every year) to pick a few and play around with how to best express the beauty I experience with them. Here are a few of those photos…

May you walk in beauty.