This morning, I ran across this joke by comedian Steven Wright:
“I’m writing a book. I have the page numbers done;
now I just have to fill in the rest.”
This is supposed to be a photography blog but you know, the thing I feel I need to share on here sometimes is about LIFE in general. I mean, I love photography, but honestly I have found “photography” and “life” are so interconnected, I am not sure how to separate them. Ansel Adams once said “A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense, and is, thereby, a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.” So, you see, our perspective on life and the world around us totally shapes our photography.
Well now, I better get back to that Steven Wright quote that I shared… I think, in a sense, we are ALL writing a book. It might just not be put down on paper. That book is the story of our lives, and we hopefully have many blank pages yet to fill in. As with any book, there usually is some grouping of pages that are interconnected by chapters, and that also is like life. We may find ourselves in different chapters in our life story, as time progresses.
So, how is it with you? How is the story of your life progressing? Are you stuck on what to write for your next sentence? Are you ready to start a new chapter, or closing a previous chapter? Do you wish you could rip out some of the earlier pages? (I think we all probably have a few pages we’d like to remove.)
Keep in mind that with each page you write, you can shift the story line in a different direction. As much as life sometimes gets into a “routine,” we have choices to make about what we do next. Even if we don’t make a choice, even that is a choice. So, I encourage you to do well in choosing how you write your life story.
The main character in your story is counting on YOU to write a great book. Be bold. Be strong. Be innovative. Be courageous. Be kind. Be loving. Be a friend. Be forgiving. Be willing to admit you’re wrong and start a chapter over again (you know you CAN do that… it’s your story). But most of all, be you… Be true to who you are. Be true to the values you hold most dear.
God willing, you have a bunch of blank pages ahead. Now you just have to fill in the rest. Make each page matter. A great book is not defined by the number of pages. It’s what you write on each page that truly matters.
Kevin Gourley
P.S. Remembering this IS a photography blog, I suppose I should emphasize this notion that photography is more than just a matter of f/stops and shutter speeds, and our life perspective is actually of central importance in our photographic creativity. We emphasize this in my Explore YOUR Photographic Creativity Workshop coming up on October 20th. If you register by October 13th, you can SAVE $50. I sincerely encourage you to sign up for this class. I believe it can help all photographers.
