Find Your Eye: Journey of Fascination - Creative Breakthrough

Thinking, digging deep, puzzling, researching, studying; those are some of things I’ve been doing for the last few days. I've been trying to write my photo journal for Kat’s Find You Eye: Journey of Fascination course. Our assignment was to look for creative breakthroughs in our photography. This was tough for me, really tough. First, I got hung up on the word creative. I struggled with the idea of my photography being creative.   So, I looked it up the definition.  I have no idea why, but I love words and love to look them up in the dictionary.

 

creative:

• relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, esp. in the production of an artistic work
• characterized by originality and expressiveness

See that word "original" that was my problem. When I think of creative I think of someone who has  an original idea and proceeds to produce a specific result. My photography ideas don't seem original to me. When I try something new, it’s usually because I’ve seen another photographer’s work or read about it and wanted to see if I can recreate it. Then, I reread the definition and saw the words "involving the imagination" and "expressiveness." While I was in the dictionary I also looked up breakthrough.

 

breakthrough:

• A sudden, dramatic, and important discovery or development

Put them both together and you have "an important discovery involving imagination or expressiveness."  Now this I could relate to. I have made a few important discoveries with my photography. Maybe not sudden or dramatic, but important none the less!

 

I would say the very first breakthrough was shortly after I began this bog. I was taking an online journaling class to help with my scrapbooking. It was suggested that we start a blog as a way to practice writing. It didn't take me long to realize there was a whole big world of photography out there. My desire was to take photos "like that!"

Another break through came when I discovered photography classes. I started out with prompt classes and then moved to deeper classes like Kat's Finding Your Eye series. Later, I also took a macro photography class. Not only was I learning about photography and my camera, but I was blessed with meeting many online friends who have a big influence on my photography.

With the idea of discovery in mind, I selected six images from my inspiration folder that I was especially pleased with and that showed growth in my photography. I studied these images asking myself some questions.

 

What was I doing at the time?

All but one of the six images were taken during times that I was participating in classes, challenges, or blog link-ups. It seems class teachings and viewing the images of others gives me the extra push I need to improve or try something new. As you can imagine during these specific times I was spending a lot of time with my camera.

 

Was I creating something specific or was it accidental?

Half of the images were taken trying to accomplish something specific by experimenting and half were taken when I was trying to improve photography skills.

 

What made them special?

The results of learning something new and improving photograph skills doesn’t always turn out well. The images I chose were special because I accomplished what I set out to do and I was pleased with the results. I do believe that I would be able to recreate them again.

 

 

There’s one thing for sure if you take one of Kat’s courses, she will make you dig deep and think! That in itself has improved my photography in many ways. Kat has shown me how to put my heart into my photography.