It was a smiley face winking at me.
I usually read or hear something first that get my attention and gives me some of my ideas, then I apply it to conversations I have with my online class with the BPSOP, and with my fellow photographers that sign up for my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet. In this case I had the idea/feeling before hearing or reading it somewhere, and followed it up by searching the web to see if others experienced similar ideas or feelings.
The feeling I had was when I remembered my mother always telling me that I had a huge imagination and it was always running away with me.
im·ag·i·na·tion
“The faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. The ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful”.
I was in Rockport, Maine conducting a workshop and while shooting down the road in Camden, I saw a table with an umbrella and a coffee cup against a wall. I moved the table over to the right to avoid a broken window to keep it clean and to have balance and negative space surrounding and defining it.
When I stepped back to take the photo, I didn’t see what I thought I was going to see, instead I saw a smiley face winking at me!!
The next day I took my class to the Lobster Festival down the road in Rockland (which is the reason I have picked this same week to teach there for twenty-eight years) and while walking around I stopped suddenly to take a photo of a man putting batter on fish. All of a sudden I was no longer looking at a man, but instead a living American flag…Old Glory. It was my imagination running away with me once again.
“Old Glory”
So my fellow photographers, the next time you go out shooting open up your mind and let it wander around. Give it a try, follow it because it just might lead you to a place you’ve never been before. Use that imagination of yours and you’ll see that it’s a very powerful tool.
Henry David Thoreau once said, “It’s not what you look at, it’s what you see”.
Btw, one of the first things that popped up while searching the web (and what this post is named after and for) was this song, and one of my favorites by the Temptations…how serendipitous was that????????????
Just my imagination running away with me
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and check out my 2016 workshop schedule at the top of this blog.
Don’t forget to send me a photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com, and I’ll create a video critique for you.
JoeB
