It’s a funny old bubble that we creatives inhabit isn’t it? We are so many characters all with the one aim, to share our talents with others yet some manage this with va va voom and others do so more reluctantly.
Take last week, I was at a flower show and after finishing my photo session I made a beeline for the art tent. Earlier in the morning I’d seen an artist heading over to the marquee head down shyly, hoping no-one approached. We met last year as we have our web designer in common. As I approached his stall last week his back was to any customers with his head down. I empathized with his shyness and walked on by without reacquainting myself.
A couple of stalls along I found a collection of stunning lamps, when you’ve read this check out his site. http://www.christianwallis.co.uk/ The shapes just made me want to reach out and touch them and run my hands over the smooth curves. In fact I did when Christian’s head was bent writing down some information for me.
Here is the difference, one artist sharing his work with the world whilst his body language said ‘beam me up Scotty’ and the second, was full of enthusiasm and ideas. Even taking the trouble to walk me around the marquee to point out the merits of each stand should I decide to exhibit in the future.
Where do I fall? Somewhere in the middle, give me an inch and I’ll enthuse about my photos, how and where they were taken, mainly the where. Yet I’m always reluctant to offer my photography talents to my friends in case they feel I’m criticizing their work.
These last couple of weeks I’ve found have been challenging my natural creativity as I’ve had to do a fair bit of admin. When I’m in the mood great, I love it, but oh the thinking about it draws all my enthusiasm away. Do you find that? I can spend ages, like today, selecting a font and colour to make the text pretty and deciding how and where to place a photo, anything to put off hat moment of doing the nitty gritty.
I guess it’s a creative thing we work better with the visual. The photography tour in Italy for example, I can see it in my mind and live it frequently, especially when I’m talking to my business partner about it. But sometimes the incessant emails to chase people and hotel confirmations can be tedious.
I know you are reading this hoping that I’m going to help you with a solution. Well all I can tell you is try and find the excitement in it. I love writing these articles for Current Photographer so I try and treat anything that I find plodding and pedestrian as an exercise in creative writing. I have just written a proposal for the self-esteem photography courses, which I might add I had been putting off until I was in the mood. In the end I wrote it in a way that would interest me to read rather than trying to mimic a business person’s way of writing it.
I guess in the end all we can ever do the is work in a way that’s true to us, that we are comfortable with, whether we are on show or out of view in our daily work lives. Something else that helps to make it easier to get tough work done is to enjoy a piece of cake, or whatever your favourite delectation is, with it. I am beginning to wonder if I mention food too much in these articles!
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Living in the beautiful rural county of Yorkshire it was perhaps natural for Ruth to have an affinity with the countryside and its wildlife. Creativity is Ruth’s driving force finding an outlet in television & radio she worked for many years as producer for BBC & ITV.
However a love of photography and for being surrounded by nature called her to go back to her photography training and bring pleasure and joy to people through her connection with our planet.
Staying in the moment when taking her images allows her to experience the natural magnificence unfolding before her eyes. It is this moment of mediation, of gratitude, that she evocatively conveys through her images.