An Attitude of Gratitude

This challenge blog will remain available indefinitely. The linky tool is now closed and the comments box removed. However if you wish to share your work the Facebook group is still open. There is a link on each blog post to the step by step journal pages on my personal blog.

Saturday 24 November 2012

Day 24: Photographs Guest Post

I invited Kat Sloma to contribute to today's theme on Photographs.  Kat hosts many online photography workshops where she encourages you to look at the Why? rather than the How? of taking photographs.

How important are photographs to you?
Do you take lots of photographs?  What do you do with them all?
Which photographs are you most thankful for? 

What would my life be like without photography? I can’t quite imagine. These days, photography seems to be my sixth sense. It’s an important way I experience the world and express myself. Losing photography would be like losing one of my senses… I would survive and compensate but it would be a painful adjustment. Photography has grown deep roots in my soul.


To say I take “lots” of photographs would be an understatement. When I stop to take a photograph, I’ll take several images, playing with composition and settings in order to find the best way to convey a feeling. When I go out on a photography excursion, the total can easily be 200 or 300 photos from one session. Out of those, if I’m lucky, there will be maybe 2 or 3 that speak to my soul. What do I do with all of the photographs I take?  Some I edit and share online. A very few – the best of the best – I print and hang on the wall somewhere. I create postcards and prints and share them with others. Sharing my art is like sharing a little piece of my heart and soul with someone else. 


But what about the thousands of photographs that don’t make the cut? What do I do with those? I keep them on my hard drive, as faint memories. They have already served a purpose, grounding me in the experience and the moment at the time of capture. They are the spirit of the place, the feeling. It seems wrong to delete them. The photographs I don’t like are as important as the ones I do. They help me learn and refine my artistic direction. They are part of my journey too.


And what a fantastic journey it’s been. I’m thankful to have photography in my life. It has given me a visual voice; a means of expression I didn’t know I needed. It has become a way to experience the world around me and meditate on the moment. It has become a way to connect with my heart and a window to my soul.

I’ll be forever grateful for the joy that a photographic practice has brought to my life.

To see more of Kat's work and read about her take on photography visit her blog.