Yesterday I saw a fun little interaction between an adult house finch and it’s young
At the Bird Feeder
outside my office window. The interaction went on long enough for me to pick up my camera with telephoto lens and make this series of images despite the fact that I was talking on the telephone with a photographer friend at the time. (Thanks for your patience, my friend, and for encouraging me that photos of the birds would be fun for others to see.)
As an aside, despite all it’s begging I also saw the youngster dipping into the bird feeder on its own to pick up a seed of two. But it seemed much more interested in demanding to be fed by the adult. It’s fun to see interactions like this close up and brings much joy to my days.
About Life and Love
In thinking about how I make photographs I realized that I photograph what I love and what makes me feel something and hope that others will also feel something in seeing the world as I see it.
If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.
― Bird by Bird
Lately I’ve been asking myself more and more, one or two similar questions when I review my work —
- How does it make me feel/what does it make me feel?
- What do I want it to express to others/how do I want them to feel when they see it?
If I can’t answer those questions, then I either conclude that the photograph is not worth sharing, or I go back and edit it to express more of the feelings that I felt when I made the image. The more that I practice photography the more that I believe that my practice is about becoming more present and conscious in my life, to express the fullness of all of the emotions of life, the easy light ones and the darker heavy ones.
Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?
― Bird by Bird
I believe that we are all artists and creators in our own way and that when we do what we love and create what we love we add light to the world.
If you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse. Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.
― Bird by Bird
Shine on friends, shine on. Live your own full life creating however you create/whatever you create, whether it is “art” or conversation or a warm family home, cozy gatherings, or whatever else you create that comes from your heart.
May you walk in beauty.
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