When the last lesson from the 4-week Kat Eye: Journey of Recognition course arrived in my mailbox, I could hardly believe it. Life, the universe, and bad lighting seriously impaired my ability to keep up with this class, and I have been blessed with amazing "virtual" classmates that have formed a real, vibrant online community and classroom. I hope someday Kat will sponsor a retreat and we will all get away together with our cameras and our array of personalities. I also hope it will be in Oregon, because 1) I've always wanted to go there and 2) I think I want a tattoo from this place in Oregon that I can't remember the name of.
The silver lining is that we have another course coming up almost immediately, the Journey of Inspiration. So, I have hope.
However, I don't think it was ONLY my life that got in the way - it was my self too. I think I intimidated myself, set my expectations too high, had a few amazing breakthroughs and experiences in Starting the Journey, and got fearful and too expectant.
So today I kicked everyone out of the house, didn't bother about the fact that the lighting is subpar, and decided to tackle photographing an unfamiliar object, from a couple weeks back. I usually lean towards my daughter, or natural backgrounds like wood, and shooting outdoors, so I figured I would try some depression glass that I needed to photograph anyhoo.
During the exercise (photos are here), I started out frustrated because I just wanted to capture this little glass, and 1) the light bites, 2) I couldn't get an uncluttered background 3) my camera is notorious for a lot of noise at high ISOs, 4) my husband took my todder AND my tripod, argh. I wasn't interested in this, and then I put the little glass on the wooden bench and added some mirrors to try to capture more natural light. Still boring. I added a different piece (with branches, of course) and got more into it - there was some texture, and interest, and something in the glass jar spoke to me. Then I came around the corner, like Kat trained us to do, and there was the little jar, looking at itself. In that angle, time got lost, things came together, and the little vignette in the previous post was born.
Joke's on me: I ended up using the natural element as a backdrop, of course, and sticking with the wide aperture, of course.. but I tried, I opened up the creative gates again, and I'd still like to try sports or architecture, but once again, can't let perfect get in the way of good. I think that the challenges of light and glass, which fades into many backgrounds, made this a challenge for me. Regardless, I feel very emotional about the results. There was something very touching to me about objects examining themselves in the mirror, about the branches reaching out of the tiny jar, about the tiny old webs hanging off the branches, and finally, the brilliance and transcendence of the light on the glass and mirror. The whole process gave me some hope about our situation and my mental state right now.
