A Visual Journey - A road to find our creative self

As artists, much of our creativeness comes from within. It is then somewhat influenced by external flashes of inspiration.

We take many paths during our Visual Journey. Some paths take us on a high road leading us to places that allow our creative energy to flow and taking our work to some of the highest peaks. Other paths take us in a downward spiral, zapping us of our creative energy and we may sink into some abyss.

These past few years, so many of us have been on that downward spiral,traveling downhill either emotionally, spiritually, financially and/or creatively. For a period of time (thankfully a short one) I found my creative spirit gone. There was nothing within me. Not only did I not feel creative, I couldn’t be creative.

To find the path leading back up the hill, I surrounded myself with creative people that I admire. This sort of energy helped pull me from the abyss and showed me the way to starting a new journey. I can now feel the creative energy starting to swirl around me again, increasing the creative juices from within. Once in awhile our creative energy needs to be inspired, to get that creative blood pumping again. I look forward to my next Visual Journey.

Ultimately we have to look within, but a little outside influence doesn’t hurt. Sometimes it may just be what we need to give us that nudge towards a new Visual Journey.

Landscape workshop turns wild....

Not all things go according to plan, and our San Juan workshop was no exception. We planned (planned being the operative word) a 2 day workshop on the beautiful island of San Juan (Washington State). The workshop's focus was wide-angle photography. Some of the landscapes and areas we planned on photographing was; American Camp, English/British Camp, the poppy fields, sculpture park, sunset at Lime Kiln and some others.

Well first let me say, that photographing in western Washington state is always risky. Our weather is most uncooperative sometimes and this weekend was no exception. After what was a beautiful, sunny week, it decided to become cold, rainy and the gray skies were back, just in time for the weekend - this was not the part of the original forecast (but then they are almost never right). At American camp, we were hoping for early morning light, instead there was no light, gray skies, and rain. The sunset photograph we planned to do from Lime Kiln State Park didn't go as planned because - well there was no sunset. The poppy fields we planned on photographing was not in bloom yet - there was a total of seven poppies, not really a field of poppies. The whole weekend was this way.



So what do you do when a workshop doesn't go according to plan? You improvise and then let luck intervene. When you have a group of people who paid money to learn something and to enjoy their weekend of photography, you need to find something for them to do and hopefully quickly. Our landscape, wide-angle photography workshop turned WILD. We found wildlife to photograph; baby foxes (they were so cute and playful), deer, and lucky for us a local person on the island, who at 5:00 pm sharp, would feed the feral cats, foxes, ravens and the most exciting of all - Eagles. There we were when all of the sudden out of the sky and trees we were surrounded by eagles. They would fly by then swoop down to pick up the goodies, that the good Samaritan, left behind, then fly back up into the trees. This went on for over a half hour. It was fascinating just to watch.



Life, in general, doesn't always go according to plan, but sometimes what happens instead is just as great, if not better. So if your landscape is a little off and not quite working, turn it into something WILD, sometimes the extra little excitement that brings, shakes you up enough to get you out of your comfort zone and let's you enjoy yourself even more.

What Were You Thinking?

This is from the 'dedication page' in the new book titled, "What Were You Thinking". A collection of photographs from the students of Dick Garvey. Soon to be available on Blurb...


"What were you thinking?" was a Garveyism quote his students heard quite often. Sometimes in jest, sometimes out of curiosity, but mostly to get them thinking about 'why' they took that particular photograph. This book is dedicated to Dick Garvey - as a man we respected, a photographer we admired, and a teacher who inspired us. He taught us the basics of photography, and more importantly, how to strive to be better photographers.

Dick Garvey enjoyed teaching. He was a natural at it and had that special gift that made his students strive for more and enjoy every minute of it. He was awed and inspired by their dedication and determination to constantly imporove.

His passion for photography was evident in his photographs, his passion for teaching was evident in his students’ photographs. This book is a collection of their passion and his.

We dedicate this book in memory of all that you have taught us, in photography and in life. We will miss you greatly, but we will carry with us always what you taught us. Whenever we set up our cameras and start to capture that photograph, we will hear you saying, "What were you thinking?". We were thinking about you and all that we learned from you.

Thank you!