I’m interested in the Creative Process: The weird, quirky magic that happens when a writer takes a pen in hand and begins to scribble words on a blank piece of paper or type on a computer keyboard; or a composer has a few notes in his/her head, and senses those fledgeling sounds might be the beginning of a symphony; or four women sit down with random squares of fabric and begin to sew together what eventually becomes a beautiful quilt.
I make photographs almost daily, and have done so for nearly 40 years. And yet, where those photographs come from -- do they fall like snowflakes from the sky, or do I unknowingly harvest them from some kind of unseen image garden? -- is often a mystery to me.
Take the four photographs I am posting here today, for example. I thought I was heading out for an early-morning run. I was dressed in running clothes; I was wearing running shoes; I had done a few pre-run stretches. But I also had a small camera in my hand, the little camera I always take with me when I run or bicycle. And as I stepped out the front door and began to jog down the driveway, I noticed that there was frost everywhere: Frost crystals in the sky had made a rainbow, reflecting the light of the rising sun; there was frost on the windows of my car parked in the driveway; and there was frost on the autumn-colored leaves on the ground.
I realized that, before I could go for a run, I had some photographs to take. What I had thought would be exercise time for my body would, in fact, begin with exercises in seeing.
Where did those images come from? Were they gifts from Photo Fairies that had visited my house overnight?
It’s all a wonderful mystery to me.
