My creative lesson 50 — Maybe I should be less obstinate..
13 December, 2020
I was looking forward to the texture challenge for a while. It is one of my most favorite topics and I also knew exactly what I was going to photograph.
Lichen — of course!
Lichen is one of my weird obsessions and I knew of a cool place, not far from my home, where the most awesome fluffy looking lichen grows. On the Saturday before the deadline, my camera was ready with a charged battery and I was ready with my hiking boots. Lichen — it is time to get ready for your photo shoot!!
The problem was that my husband wanted to go on a long hike in the opposite direction. No worries, I thought, I will just grab my camera bag when we return and go and shoot the lichen. Basically just continue walking another kilometer, get the lichen and come back
The hike with my husband turned out to be unexpectedly long. Just one of those things with no one to blame. We arrived hungry and tired but I was still adamant to not give up on the lichen. I have been looking forward to this challenge for weeks.
I left my husband to make lunch and finally set off to shoot the lichen!
Second problem of the day — the lichen were not as fluffy and handsome as I remembered. Our winter rains stopped early this year — I should have known that the lichen would start to dry out.
I promised myself though that I am going to shoot the lichen for the texture challenge, so I photographed the lichen. Even as I saw through my camera’s viewfinder that the lichen are not looking at their best (and the background is too noisy), I congratulated myself for sticking to my plan.
And again when I edited my photo. I knew that this photo was not the best texture photo I ever took but I was still proud of myself because I shoot the lichen!
It took a while for me to realize that I should have just dropped the lichen idea as soon as I saw their sorry state and taken a photo of something else. I was literally standing in an open field with cool textures all over the place.
This is not really a lesson about creativity but more about myself. Why was I so obstinate to shoot the bloody lichen already!?
I often change my mind about which photo to upload for the weekly challenges. And I love how a photo shoot can swing into a new direction that I am more than happy to explore.
But not this week.
Maybe it is because of my lichen fixation and because the obstacles made me even more determined. I was so set on to stick to the plan that I was blind to seeing what my eyes showed me.
I always thought that it is a good thing to make a plan and stick to it. Obstacles are placed there to test you. It is a sure sign that you are on the right path when you troubleshoot all the problems away.
The lichen photo is however proof that life is a bit more subtle. Sometimes obstacles are meant to divert you into a new direction. Or stop you for a few seconds so that you can decide if you are really on the right path.
This was not a lesson that I wanted to learn -
I thought my creative journey would open up new possibilities and encourage and inspire me. Instead it showed me a negative aspect of myself. Maybe I am a little bit too obstinate…Sometimes.
How ironic that it is my beloved lichen that taught it to me. Right?!
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