Passion for Photography

I knew there was a problem when my pictures became scarce. I've always loved taking photos. Capturing those beautiful scenes, framing them and focusing on those things that my eye naturally draws to which so many others seem to overlook. I'm an artist. A non-practicing artist for the most part, but my eye still sees the beauty. When I stopped seeing the beauty, I stopped wanting to capture the beauty, and the passion left me.

I was artistically silent for over a year. Sure there were some photos taken here and there. I have a four year old - there's no lack of pictures! But the photography, the art, the capturing of beauty was gone. I was merely capturing a memory, a lost moment, taking my snapshots in hopes of reliving it later. The camera rarely came out except on special occasions under obligatory family duty.

At some point this Spring, perhaps as I watched the screensaver of past experiences flash in front of me on the computer, something stirred in me. I picked up my camera again. Not only did I pick it up, but inspired by a friend, I decided to persue a dream of publishing my photography. It started with a simple one evening class at the Arvada Center where I learned the steps to start selling photos. I began travelling (see my journeys blog) and snapping as many shots as my husband had the patience to endure. Luckily, his patience is better than mine. I snapped picture after picture after picture. Sand Dunes, Chatauqua, Colorado National Monument, the flowers in my back yard, the light post on the corner. As I snapped off a few pictures last weekend as we were ending a hike in Boulder, I had a revelation. I'd been taking pictures for weeks. And I continued taking pictures. But I was no closer to being published than months before. Only now I had thousands of images.

It was time to take the next step. I was going to have to actually attempt to get published. I knew this meant rejection and had been putting it off while I happily snapped shots. But snapping the shots was no longer good enough.

I went into a funk for a few days, having lost my "mojo", my passion, my fire. Photography for the sake of photography wasn't going to be good enough ever again. It was time to face the music. I had to take another step or I'd get sucked back into the empty void lacking inspiration.