Whilst watching this amazingly inciteful video earlier this morning, I got to thinking about moments for photographs that are stuck in my mind, yet I have not had the opportunity to return with a camera to capture them.
One of them is a fog-covered and very wet parcel of land in the corner of a paddock. (Oh, it is not the photograph displayed to the left of screen!).
The view in my head looks exactly as I have described it. There appears to be nothing special about the fog, nor the water, nor the trees. But in combination, the moment looks amazing. The only thought I had when I saw it was “Oh crap, my camera is at home!” In truth, we were driving past it, so the whole moment was incredibly fleeting and momentary.
Yet that swamp is still stuck in my mind, like a canvas that will never fade. Whenever I think of my favourite photograph, it is still the one that stands out the most. I have no doubt it will fade from my mind as the years go by, yet I am so glad I had the chance to spot and see it.
That said, I love that I never photographed the scene. See, in order to keep on putting in the 99%, I need moments to remind me how much effort I need to put in to achieve what I want to do. That was one of them.
The second moment is actually a scene I spotted in early October 2010 whilst crossing a main road in the Adelaide CBD whilst walking from our standard carpark in the south parklands.
This moment involves rays of sunlight streaming over the hills across the side of a building, through the still leaves of a windless morning upon a non-native tree, interacting with the solid lines and textured surfaces of the walls.
The contrast of conflicting elements struck me as a perfect metaphor for the way both nature and manmade objects can work so well together.
I’ve worked out the perfect place to shoot this image, but it is going to cost me: I need three 3-metre additional legs for my tripod, a tall-ish step-ladder so I can reach the heigh of the long-legged tripod.
That said, I am not giving up. I will probably reassess the needs to achieve these goals before October this year.
That said, I’ve no doubt the final result will not live up to the image in my head. That doesn’t matter: What does matter is that I give it a go. If it takes a 99, 100, 101 attempts to capture even close to what I can see in my head, it doesn’t matter.
These two images blinding my mind are merely memory of a moment, and do not necesarily need to be the final result.
Lehrer says in the video, “the most productive thing we can do is forget about work“ and “that feeling of knowing will become actual knowledge“.
I am using this information to remind myself that my attempts to make art is merely an extension of who I am, and not ALL that I am.
I like that my creative streak covers so many different avenues and mediums.
That means I can switch to the another as a way of relaxing and escaping the thoughts of another. I can switch to writing to escape photography, and vice versa. Or I can switch to t-shirt graphic design to escape the horrors of online social networking. Or view a video such as Lehrers to remind myself of why I like to pick up the WACOM or BIC pen to create art.
Nightly I know that invent interesting things — yet I forget them before morning! That which I don’t forget I assume is worth the dream, and that which I need to achieve. Having a creative streak enables me to remember that life is short, time is fleeting and that which we don’t achieve, well, shit happens.
For the most part this article is a release of motor neurons whilst watching that video. Yet I felt it worth publishing here. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Creativity & Artwork of Stephen Mitchell 
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