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FREE SPIRIT
Perhaps my favorite column and the one most commented on by readers was written in April 1981. It concerned allowing the free spirit of the child to show through in your photography. I think heading into the holiday season and approaching a new year that it's appropriate to rerun the story. The message is timeless and is worth recalling from time to time.
When we are born, we share something in common - the innocence, imagination, and free spirit of a child and the impulse to make our mark on the world. We all carved initials on a tree or buried a "treasure" in a secret place and wondered if through the ages they would still be there.
We hoped that our actions as children would make life a little more pleasant and as we grew and entered new worlds we hoped to leave the message that "I was here ".
Isn't it a shame that in most cases the price of growing up includes having smothered out of us the innocence, imagination, and clear vision of the child? People and social pressures begin to tell us what to think and how to feel. We begin to question our judgments and question our motivations.
Wouldn't it be truly refreshing if we could hang on to the child in all of us and not let it be set aside. Not only would our lives be enriched, but the creative part of us will be stimulated. After all, the most valuable part of ourselves is the region of the mind where creativity and imagination reside.
And this can apply directly to your photography, which, of course, can be highly creative. Begin by looking through your viewfinder with feelings and imagination. Reach bock to the innocence of childhood and draw from the well of creativity inside you.
Try to communicate with your subject as we did with things when we were children. Let your photographs speak for you and about you.
When your emotions are stirred by a certain image in your viewfinder, nourish these feelings, don't stifle them. Don't be afraid to let people learn about you through your photography and don't fear their judgments and opinions. Learn to trust your creative impulses as we did when we were children. Experiment and welcome change. The tree you photograph today will have changed by tomorrow.
Remember that as children we used to build personal relationships with things important in our lives. Build the some personal relationship with your subjects. A photographer with the clear vision of a child is saying: "This is what I saw, this is what I felt, this is what I wish to share with you."
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