My Creative Journey

A few months ago I stumbled upon the “Kim Klassen Café”; originally lured by her fabulous textures, but soon drawn in by her heartfelt posts and her generous nature. I watched several tutorials she posted on her site and loved her gentle, effective teaching style. When she announced her “Beyond Layers” class, I knew I just had to participate. And so I signed up for this journey…52 weeks of “encouragement, motivation, and inspiration”. Our first assignment is to document our creative story…and here is mine:

Who am I? I am the product of my mother, an artistic being and my father, a very logical, technical being. I have always been a bit of a nerd growing up, which brought me to my degree in computer science and career as a software engineer. I enjoy the challenge my job brings. Developing software and troubleshooting problems involves a great deal of creativity, not unlike that needed by my inner artist. I’ve allowed my inner artist to explore different art forms throughout my life. I’ve dabbled in dance, piano, ceramics, oil painting, knitting, and many other artistic adventures. As much as I enjoyed learning and practicing them, they just didn’t completely fulfill some inner need …something I just couldn’t put my finger on.

A few years ago, my father-in-law showed me some pictures he took with his Fuji Finepix camera….they were amazing! Some of his pictures were selected for the Bank of Madison annual calendar that year. I was so impressed with the beauty of these images, that I added a Fuji Finepix camera to my wish list. On my following birthday, my husband got me that camera. I knew from the first flower macro I snapped and downloaded to my computer, I was hooked. I was so excited to discover all the fine little details at the center of a flower, the way the butterfly proboscis curls up when it finishes sipping nectar, the way the bumblebees get covered in pollen as they feed from the flowers. I love being outdoors amongst nature and being able to capture a moment in time…the brilliance of a leaf in autumn, the expression on the squirrel’s face when it discovers that I filled up the bird feeders. One day I went out sailing with my husband and I brought my camera with me. My husband is an amazing sailor and we had never tipped our little sailboat over before so I thought my camera would be safe (guess where this is going). The wind picked up and caught us off guard. The boat started to go over. My husband tried to release the sail but couldn’t get it out of the cleat….and yes, the boat went over....completely upside down. That was the end of my beloved Fuji Finepix. It was a sad event, but in a way, it was the start of a new adventure with my Nikon D60. That event happened 3 years ago, and I still shoot with my Nikon D60 to this day. I started sharing my pictures on Flicker and enjoying the amazing works of other photographers. I studied what it was about the images that really caught my eye and I tried to emulate the style and composition of those images. Through this exploration, I discovered textures, Photoshop, and Adobe Lightroom, my new obsessions. This is where I am at today; still loving the adventure, the possibilities, the artistry of photography and photo editing. I am excited about all there is still to be learned. I look forward to participating in this class and meeting all of my fellow classmates.

Thank you for reading!