Hang In There

It can be discouraging when competing with the big fish, but if you have the passion you’ll make a stand and stand out on your own.  Patience is what one needs at times like this.  Also, being humble and having a respect towards the others goes a long way as well.  By all means, I am not the best or the most well-known, heck no one has even heard of me as a photographer but that’s fine.  That’s something I have to earn with respect, hard work, creativity and quality in my product.  In fact I am not intentionally trying to gain or earn respect.  That’s not what I do.  What I do is to make photographs and while in the actual process of making them I am the best there is.  No doubt in my mind.  I am in the zone tapping into that endless source of light and power and creative energy.  I am creating and I am living in what is.  There is nothing more noble and powerful than creation.  Anything born from this peaceful concentration has a meaning you just have to be open to receive it.  Well, again I can’t help but be humbled by the great talent that is out there, but humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts.  It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all.

The other day someone posted on a FaceBook a beautiful quote by legendary martial artist Bruce Lee.  Incidentally it was my favorite quote (which I have taped in my office where I can see it) and it gave me a new reserve of strength and resolve to continue the course.

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.” – Bruce Lee

Thank you my friends for being there.

I gathered some flowers from the back yard and was on my way to give them to my wife Jasmen when she saw me and snapped this photo. It quickly became a favorite.