Listen to your heart

Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real. – Deepak Chopra

During this month’s “Gathering light” class, our class instructor Laura gave a wonderful lesson talking about the importance of finding our authentic voice, and not let outside influence dictate what we want to do with our photography. I find her lesson to be very timely and it resonates with me strongly. I have listed to the recording a few times, and each time I feel I have got more out of the lesson. The lesson provides one of those gut check moments when have doubts about what I do with my photography.

The class have been having a spirited online discussion about the importance of being authentic with our work, and the way to go about it. There have been many great responses, and I have been enjoying reading up on them and reflect on how the responses relate to me. The response from one of my classmates Shari “authentic to me means when I let my heart speak” really strike a chord with me. So much so I feel compelled to write a blog entry reflecting on this line of thinking.

Before the last two years, I usually go on action-adventure trips with friends, or with photographers with whom I admire their work for grand landscape photography. They were all great experiences. I have made many friends and came away with many wonderful landscape images. While the images were all technically proficient, and they certainly show you what the places I have been to, somehow, I never feel I made any connection with those images. I feel they were someone else's ideas, but not mine. The images show how proficient I am with my camera equipment and the editing process, and that's about all I can say with them.

For the past two years, I have been photographing close to home, really exploring what Rhode Island has to offer. I notice there has been a major shift with the direction of my work. When I show my recent work to my friends who have known me for years, they could not those work are mine. I took the time to curate and group my photos into collections last year, and I found myself much more excited about the work I produced close to home. Instead of dreading the process of editing the images, usually I can't wait to see what I have got after each shoot. This experience has taught me a valuable lesson. I feel my work is authentic when the photos and their edits are reflections of my personality, and they feel as an extension of my temperament. They are in alignment with who I am as a person. I can tell you clearly what draws me in to take those images, how I feel at that moment and where the attractions lie. I feel the most gratifying when I hear people say they can sense my sensibility in my work. That means a lot to me, and it is way more important than to tell me how sharp or how technically proficient my images look.

We each have a visual style and our own vision. It has to do with the subjects we choose to photograph and the way we choose to photograph them. It’s the visual language along with the emotion, the technical choices we make to express our thoughts, the way we emphasize our subjects, literally the way we tell a visual story. The challenge as a photographer is to convey that with an image, or series of images independent of context most of the time. In addition to presenting the visual material, it must also convey something the person behind the camera. I feel the proudest when I can take ownership of the work. Most of all, I connect with my bliss when I listen to my heart, and there is no greater feeling.