In one of my recent posts I mentioned that I had been filling my time with some really great books, blogs, and podcasts. One of those blogs is that of Austin Kleon. If you aren’t familiar with him, you can check him out here, although I highly recommend starting with my recent favorite post called Airplane mode to stay grounded, or another favorite from back in June about Doing the work that’s in front of you.
In a totally separate post though, he mentions that a reader once commented that they hoped he chuckled as much making the stuff he showcases on his blog as they did reading through it. His answer was that he probably did even more-so, but then went on to say this:
I feel, actually, that this is still an entirely underrated reason for making stuff: simple diversion and amusement to entertain one’s self. I mean, honestly, if we can’t find some pleasure in making, why bother?
And that’s such a beautiful sentiment. I often wonder if I’m “doing it right” when it comes to photography, and have had many a lengthy discussion about the “point” of even doing this work (my personal work of course, separate from the work I do for clients, which is both with a great deal of purpose AND conveniently also something I derive a great amount of joy from). But more and more I’m coming to realize that some work will have something to say, and some work will just be, well, made for my own pleasure. And that’s ok. Does that keep it from being Art? Maybe. Does that discount it, or mean others won’t enjoy it? Well, I hope not. For all of you reading this I like to think that the fact you’re here is the answer to that question.
For the past several months I’ve been working on cleaning out my personal photo catalog, organizing it and paring down a bit. As I tested out Lightroom’s search capabilities I discovered I have a lot of images of flowers, most of which were made solely for my own diversion. Simply because I wanted to make them. Also many have never seen the light of a computer screen (besides my own.) So with the lesson from Austin’s blog in mind, I thought I’d share a few of my favorites, along with a few favorites from client shoots that I thought rounded out the set.
And ps, while this can be viewed from a phone, the layout will show up better on a larger screen (tablet, laptop, or desktop.)