I must confess I haven’t been shooting much these last days.  I’m not lacking inspiration, I’m just catching up on office work that needs to be done and that I had put aside, for many reasons.  One being, it’s boring!  I tend to favour the more fun, creative part of photography.  But one can’t be shooting and creating all the time.  One also has to update its portfolio, submit work to agencies, upload accepted submissions, and the tedious task of keywording everything.  That’s what I call the B-Side, just like on old music records, there was always this other song you only played when you really had the time for it.  November is quite the perfect time for that, as leaves have fallen, everything is brown or grey and cold.  Until the snow sets in and lights up the landscape, I prefer to be inside and catch up on clerical duties.  

I don’t go in the “big city” often.  Mostly I feel like it’s not worth the time spent jammed in traffic to get there or the price and availability of parking spaces.  Even if it’s really close it sometimes takes a long time to get to your destination.  You see, it’s an island and I live off the island which means I depend on a bridge for access.  Bridges seem to be the main attraction for road accidents, thus blocking everyone in or out of the island.  Often enough to drive you crazy.  And there’s also the road work.  On. Every. Highway.  It’s true I do like my little town surrounded by lakes, just enough city just enough country.  But sometimes I feel the urge to get out, so that’s what I did on my day off last week.  

I’ve been watching a lot of workshops and tutorials lately.  Inspiring ones, I must add.  They left me with an urge to create and in a way I’d never done before.  I often find myself too comfortable in my work, my images come to me easily, like a second nature.  And as much as I love my work, I want more.  I do have a problem though, a big one.  The more I try to challenge myself, the more confused I get.  It’s a bit difficult to explain, but I feel like I can’t really get a grip of who I really am and what I really want.  I’m lost.   And I’m not sure I like that feeling.  Actually, I hate it.  

The Apple

So this is the fruit that made us all human.
So this is the fruit we reached for and got.
So this is the fruit that ripens in autumn.

Cezanne,
I envy your eye.
Knowing roundness,
you put an apple in a bowl,
curve into curve
like lovers.

~Bruce Guernsey

I had a conversation with my closest online friend the other day and it striked me that even if we’re oceans apart, and in different situations in our lives, we deal with the same issues.  We have the same fears, same kind of dreams and same observations of the inequity of it all.

Why does many talented, hard-working people get stuck and aren’t able to go forward and succeed while others breeze through it without any effort?  We’re talking about people we could compare to, not royalty or famous people.  And it seemed unfair.  That conversation, and an online article I read this morning, lead me to this post.