Through The Looking Glass

Digital Diva here with some questions to ponder. What is our personal creative vision? What themes continually drive our photographic expression? Who are we as artists?

Having just finished a fabulous photo seminar here on Molokai called "Rekindling The Creative Spirit" co-taught by Dewitt Jones, Rikki Cooke, Theresa Airey, and Jonathan Kingston, the Diva may be getting closer to an answer for herself. This annual event fills participants and instructors with inspiration and new techniques/ideas for going further in our photos. We come away rejuvenated; our photography gains new life.

Still, when we examine the themes that continually show up in our image-making, even as we explore new creative options, we may discover clues to an artistic identity; our photo vision if you will.

I gave a slide show for the class combining images from 15 years ago (film, what a concept), digital images from the last year and a half, and more recent iPhone images. All these photo media had distinct commonalities. My unifying themes were and are abstraction, simplicity, and other realities. With "other realities" taking top billing. I've always been captivated by the underlying realities that a camera can see even when we can't. Slow shutter speeds, camera movement, multiple exposure continue to dominate how I "see".

Can you look back and find some of your themes? What attracts you again and again photographically? As Rikki Cooke says, "What's turning your head?"

Here are a couple of iPhone photo art images that turned my head. Or were in my head. Or both.