Today’s post is about showing up. I think Woody Allen is the one who is quoted as saying winning or success is 99% about showing up. (Or was that Charlie Sheen?) Nevermind, the point is I made a commitment to publish a photo or two each day during this week-long photography challenge and I am keeping it! Of course it’s only Wednesday, but I am taking one day at a time here.
All fooling aside, a body of work is simply the accumulation of many small steps. Habits can help. So can grit. (grin)
To be specific, I am talking about showing up to do the work, or to a daily practice, or to taking action frequently, or to making one small step after another toward a creative goal. If I am honest, today I didn’t feel like doing it. I have a rotton head cold and chills. I took enough antihistamine to sink and elephant. I am not feeling the least bit inspired. And that smurch on the camera has me totally annoyed. And and and, I could complain all day long. Which I did, until about thirty minutes ago. I hauled my body out of bed, ate a bowl of soup for supper, took up the camera.
I tried to take a cute photo of the cat, but she is a) crabby and b) ran too fast. Thus saved from banality, on to semi-spontaneous Plan B. I remembered wondering one day last week how my starkly patterned purse would look against the patterned carpet runner in a black and white photo. (Note: If I were a compliant note taker I would have had this idea recorded somewhere and I don’t, but as it happens, I remembered it anyway.) So here goes!
Which is dizzier, this black and white version or --
The same photo in color?
Now that I look at the pictures again, maybe it is the patterns making me dizzy and not the medications? Anyhoo, which photo do you prefer — or neither? Was it worth getting out of bed for? I believe so, or I wouldn’t have done it.
Do you “show up” regardless of how you feel, or do conditions need to be exactly right in order for you to create? Would you agree that conditions are in fact rarely perfect?
{ 4 comments }
The BW is better, because the pattern become uppermost. In the color version, we lose the intensity. Ain’t it grand that digital lets you choose — after the fact — which way to go?
Thanks for the tip! Funny thing.That might be the first BW photo I have taken literally in decades. I’m glad I tried it, even if just to see the difference side by side!
I second the BW. And it intrigues me more.
The color photo is dizzier.
It was very interesting seeing them side by side!!
Thanks!
Jane of Orange! The coloring makes me dizzy in real life, too. The tan/golden brown/beiges in the bag and carpet are fairly close but not quite a match and I find that totally disconcerting — it seems like they should match, but they don’t — so it looks like “nice try but no cigar” and that bothers me every time I plunk my purse on the floor next to my desk. I’ve started hanging it on the chair instead.
Thank you for voting.