Wordsworth

Every now and then ya just have to read some Wordsworth. :)

Will always love Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.

Here's an excerpt from the poem that is fueling my thoughts behind his blog post.

I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me
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An appetite: a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, or any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompence. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour
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Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
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A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognize

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
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The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

I remember writing about this poem in one of my lit classes at Eastern. I connected so strongly with it then, and now. I won't really go into that though. I could go on and on. Anyway, I'm actually blogging about photography. A while back I declared the goal of launching my photography business this spring. Well over the holiday season I had decided not to. But I just spent the last hour researching and compiling a budget list of the things I want to have on hand before I start. So I guess I'm going for it.  

I go back and forth over whether or not it is something I really want to do for $. I have been shooting since high school. It started out as more of a way to feel closer to God, honestly. I would see something beautiful that made me think of how wonderful God is and snap a photo. Anything from macros of my own eye to sun shining through dirty bus windows. I just wanted to catch all the beauty I saw. I viewed things differently then. Then gears shifted when I went to college and I started to be more interested in portraits. I really enjoyed shooting people I knew well. I like trying to capture someone's personality in a photo. People can communicate so much through their eyes . . . always been a favorite subject of mine. 

here's an oldie but goody I took using a Canon powershot back in high school . . . 

 And then I realized I was missing out on truly enjoying a moment for what it was because I viewed too much of it through a camera lens. I remember one day I went out to shoot without my glasses on, because I didn't need them as much back when. While I was out I switched to manual focus and shot most of my photos that way. Well a real problem revealed itself when I was back on my couch looking at what I had accomplished. All was well until my eyes started bugging me, so I put on my glasses . . . Suddenly every picture was blurry. I was so frustrated, because the first few were fine and I knew I had taken clear photos. They looked great on the screen while I was out! Then it dawned on me . . . my eyes were worse than I wanted to admit and I had focused my lens to fit my prescription rather than a clear reality. It was all too metaphorical. 

I've since realized a couple of things. A) I need to wear glasses/contacts, especially when photographing . . . but more importantly B) with my face stuck behind a camera I can miss what's really going on in life. Similar to the problem of spending time trying to share my life online when I could actually be living it more. I've been challenged by this a lot lately. I love to waste time on Pinterest like the next person, but I could sit and watch my daughter play with the snow men that decorate the house instead. I watched a very detailed conversation today between her, the cat, and a before mentioned "Frosty". It was adorable.




Back to my point . . . my relationship with photography has been in a love hate cycle, but I think I'm finding a balance. I photograph and videotape my kids far less so that I can be in the moment more than behind it. I will thoroughly enjoy watching videos and looking at photos when time has passed and I can't remember all the cute little things, but it is much more meaningful to them if there are fewer photos and more moments spent truly together. However, I am getting more into abstract and nature photography again which is helping me see the beauty in the chaos again. I steered away from nature photography for several years and really lost a sense of awe. I stopped looking all together. I went from one extreme of always trying to capture it perfectly to not even noticing it was there. "It" being anything from beautiful scenery to light and color playing together wonderfully. 

Like this old desktop background I took freshman year of college:

I still love photography people though and really enjoy giving beautiful photos to someone who will cherish them for a long time to come. Why not make money doing it? I get to be in control of how much and when, so I can't really come up with a reason why not to at this point. I've been dragging my heals for a couple reasons though. One being that there are soooo many photographers out there, so would I even get good business. Then I remember I don't really want "good" business. I want slow business, so it doesn't take over my life. Second, I fear that putting the pressure of income on a hobby I have loved for years will make me enjoy it less. But when the subject is people and you get to know wonderful clients I don't know why I would dislike it . . . 

I mean I didn't get scared away after my first wedding a few years ago:      

I'm going to go for it though. The worst that could happen is failure, and that's really not that big of a deal. I can roll with it. I do need to come up with a name. I don't want to use C. Elizabeth Photography anymore, because I have a daughter named Elizabeth now. I don't want my other children to think I named my business after her or favor her because I love the name and it's also my middle name.




But I don't really want to use my name as my business name. That way if I ever get a partner I don't need to worry about changing my business name. Not sure what to do though. Been thinking about it for months and still haven't come up with a name I like. 




Alright this post has taken me all day to write and I'm so over it. :)