Fotoshop by Adobe

For about just under five years I worked at a newspaper. Though it is illegal to digitally touch-up a journalistic photograph, it is certainly okay to do it for advertising and marketing pieces. There are far too many young people who do not understand that EVERY photo they see of a celebrity is touched up - yes, even the ones where the celebrity looks like they've just come back from the dead - even that one is touched up in some way (possibly to make them look worse?).
As a photographer you are trained to "see the light." Literally. The other day I was standing at my kitchen window staring out at our apple tree. My husband walked in, looked at me, then went to the window to see what I was looking at - like perhaps there was a four-headed green monster outside. No, no monster, just some incredible light wrapping around the frozen fog on the tree branches. He was completely oblivious to how beautiful it was, but I was so engulfed with its majesty that I couldn't even run to get my camera. It was almost as if I didn't want to invade in that sacred, peaceful moment of the morning.

This post is two-fold. First, check out this link. Then share it with your friends. This is a very real thing that we live with today and I just wish I would have learned to be comfortable in my own skin a whole lot sooner than I did. Hopefully this link will be of some help to someone out there.

Secondly, as a creative person it's important to find new inspiration. Naturally, creative people 'tick' a different way than most sciency people (my hubby's one of those cut and dry sciency nerds... it's kind of cute). One of my favorite things to do is to sit outside (or at my living room window) and look (contrary to what my neighbors think, I'm not watching them) and look at the light. Watch the way it curves around objects. Watch the way the shadows dance across the ground. Watch the way the clouds wisp through the sky and the way it falls on the hair of the kids playing in the yard. Watch the way it highlights the colors in the flowers and the way it causes shadows to change the perspective of objects. When you flip through a magazine, look at the way the light is falling on the subject. Try to determine where the light systems are set up - look at the eyes of the individuals in the photos and look at the way the light is shining on them.

Ug, I think I could bore you for a good hour with a lecture on 'light.' Isn't it an incredible thing? Ok. Ok. enough about the light... just open your eyes and take a look for yourself! I think you'll learn to hate certain magazines, love others, and be more intrigued with the world around you! Like any painting in a museum, light has a story to tell and if you'll just look, you'll be able to see what every detail of that story is! Pretty fascinating!

Happy looking at the light (and allowing yourself to look silly in front of your so-not-creative husband!)