Unexpected Gifts

one of the unexpected gifts of this particular journey has been a renewed interest in photography.  with the advances made in cameras i find i can  take as many bad pictures as necessary to get that good one.  more often than not i find that many pictures taken are done with an eye towards creating a drawing or painting.  that these drawings or paintings originate from a composite of various photos.  meaning that even the bad shots are useful if containing a germ of what i am trying to communicate via paint or pencil or ?...  this subject's pose from one photo combined with that same subject's facial expression from another photo.   this play of sunlight on another subject combined with a preferred location.  all this composite work encourages me to play and take risks with subjects, locations, lighting and angles. 

when i say "renewed interest" perhaps i truly mean a refreshed interest.   i am not only taking photos to document an occasion or vacation as in the past.  i am taking photos to express myself creatively.  i am taking photos to inspire me later during the times when i am just sure the next creative act will never come.

the irony is that the overexposed,  fuzzy, uncomposed photos i claim as my legacy and my bad luck in the past are like my creative kin.  i am becoming more and more aware that the creative works i produce today also contain the same elements of: the off perspective, the ordinary, the not quite in focus, the beautiful caught quite by accident.  those elements that would have left me exasperated because of their imperfections, which are now revealed as having great value.  value as an expression of the authentic self that i am just beginning to know.