How are you Hard-Wired?

Each of us is hard-wired a certain way. And that hard-wiring insinuates itself into our work. That's not a bad thing. Actually, it's what the world expects from you. We want our artists to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise us. If you are by nature a loner, a crusader, an outsider, a jester, a romantic, a melancholic, or any one of a dozen personalities, that quality will shine through in your work.

-- Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit

I ran across this quote while reading over the weekend and said a huge "YES!" It's always amazing to me when I read the work of these famous, creative people and it basically restates what I've come to believe through my own experiences. This quote from Twyla Tharp in her book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life so completely expresses the idea behind my Find Your Eye classes: We all have a unique vision to share with the world, and it comes through in our work. We just have to look for it.

In my photography, I find that I typically like the scenes that show both details and context. Not the grand sweeping vistas so much or super close-up details, although you will see those on occasion. This one, a new one in my market/wheels series, is from Milan. A little scene of a market in the Brera district, the same market as my Orange Power shot but a different perspective capturing different details. Kind of typical of my work, don't you think? Not just in this series, but in the selection of composition, subject, camera settings. How are you hard-wired in your art? Do you know? If you're a photographer, I can help you find out in the Find Your Eye series of classes, and I'm so excited about that! Registration is open now if you're interested.

I'm barely into reading The Creative Habit and it's fantastic so far. It's been great to get my back into my own creative habits of journaling, reading and blogging in the mornings since the move. Together, these habits are my personal recipe to keeping me grounded, aware and creatively charged. I look forward to reading more of Twyla's wisdom in the coming days. You can expect me to share the bits and pieces I find interesting here!