Shutter Sisters

creative play

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As we cultivate our life, our beauty becomes as much about what we are creating and doing as it is about our appearance.

I like to play with photography. Just for the fun of it. Nikon dslr, film, or new-to-me iPhone; I embrace the challenge of a learning curve. When I’m bored, when I’m anxious, happy, feeling creative, or just need an outlet to express an emotion, I can always count on a camera to aid in the creative process. I am a sometimes writer, a used to be seamstress, and an everyday photographer.

This image was my first shot as I was adjusting my settings in the bathroom mirror, and it’s the one I like the most because this is my real face…  when I forget to smile. “Why do you always look like that?” he’d ask me. “That’s just how my face looks when I’m thinking.”

Today show us your creative process. Is it paper or paint? Do you play with images, words, or music? Do you create in the kitchen or with needle and thread? We all have many outlets available to us, some of them we’re drawn to more than others. I’m finding the more I play with my creations, the happier I become with what can often feel like the tedium of everydayness.

Inspire us today with your creative process!

 

Comments

  2. I love your creative self portrait! Fantastic idea. 🙂

    My creative process starts with wandering and soaking up the world around me – through books, travel, images. Then I play with the jumble and swirl of ideas in my head, and they come out in some new combination that makes those ideas mine. Photography, writing, painting – they all work together to create something new out of all of the input. The image I posted on my blog today is one example: http://www.kateyeview.com/2011/05/making-it-mine.html

  4. Part of my creative process is taking a hike with my camera in hand. I look up and down and click away. I never come home disappointed. There is always something in the stash that I can have fun with. Also, trying or studying something new and different is part of my process. I've become extremely interested in studying photojournalistic wedding photography. If anyone knows of a great site, book or class offered on-line on the subject, I'd love to hear about it.

    http://jessicavescera.blogspot.com/2011/05/trees.html

  10. I express my creativity mostly through my camera lens, but I also love to sew and knit. I just completed a sewing project that I'm particularly proud of – a set of dolls for my daughter's first birthday:

    http://jenniferkrafchik.typepad.com/jennifer_krafchik_photo_b/2011/05/wee-wonderfuls-sleepover-pals.html

    I'm not an especially experienced sewer, but I love these dolls because I had enjoyed making them and they remind me of the kinds of gifts my mother made me as a child. My parents passed a lot of their creativity down to me and I'm very grateful for that outlet.

  13. What a great image. Love it.

    I have two chief creative outlets. Photography and baking. They light me up.

    I love to play different characters for my self portraits:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5156735347
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5661034421
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5610697561

    I also love to just capture things that make me happy:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5679104854
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5629713267
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5505214100

    And I lovelove to bake:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5362845182
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/5322412374
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/libertadleal/4992290174

  14. As a husband and wife team (wedding photographers) we try to use our life experiences to stimulate creativity in our photographs. The experience of a great photograph we took 10 or 15 years ago that made everyone smile, a moment we had in our courtship or just looking for that certain smile

  15. Wow, Meredith! You've said it all!! Photography is my main medium, writing a tiny bit, that may expand. Like you, I used to create via my sewing skills, but that's all gone by the wayside. And since finding Shutter Sisters and year ago, then Tracey's "Picture" classes, I have learned that a photo a day does keep the blues away, the tedious becomes more joyful. I'm a much more contented person now, don't grumble and complain as much. Hardly at all, actually. And my whole world view has changed. No photo to share today but just wanted to chime in because you really struck a chord with me!

  17. what a creative self-portrait – love it! For years, my creative outlet was calligraphy. It was something that I learned to do from books, and it gave me so much personal satisfaction. Over the past 6 months, I have begun dabbling in photography – it's so exciting to find a new passion.

    These were pictures of my calligraphy that I took long before I knew anything about shooting in manual mode or with anything beyond kit lenses. Now I look forward to what I can do with the camera the next time I have an excuse to pull out my ink and nibs 🙂

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/58821554@N06/5684220595/in/photostream/

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/58821554@N06/5684220671/in/photostream/

  23. my method of creative outlet as of late has included few words with one photograph, generally via iphonography.

  28. What is also interesting that this is a problem where simple attention, exposure, got it to disappear. Where the old "power of the pen" becomes reaffirmed in the internet age.