The Way I See It!

Growing up in Barbados and moving to the US, I’d always been a linear thinker with cookie cutter life goals; Go to school, get a good job, start a family yada yada yada. Rules and social norms were my bread and butter.

So what changed? My husband encouraged me to take a photography course and it completely changed how I view the world.

As expected my perspective didn’t change overnight. I initially learned by mimicking and following the ‘rules’ like most do, but slowly over time, my curiosity took over as the driving force for my creativity.

I’ve thought alot about my progression and growth over the years both in photography and as a human and how I’ve gradually gravitated towards abstract images in the past few years. I’ve come to realize that with abstracts the imagination plays a huge role and there’s a sense of play that’s generally lacking as we ‘adult’. I also realized that the playfulness is something I often crave. My favorite locations to photograph tend to be places with infinite possibilities for composition; sand dunes, the coast. Places where I can wander aimlessly and allow my piqued interest to guide me while quieting the noise around me.

Photography has given me permission to break the rules in ways I normally wouldn’t in my day to day. To let my inner 5 year old out to play and create images that are more about experimentation and what I’m drawn to than what I think will be a crowd pleaser. I’m trying to implement this approach into some of my every day decisions as well but I caveat this by pointing out that in photography there’s the benefit of being able to delete or hide away most of messy unwanted results that come from following new paths. In real life I’m stuck with them so I do choose my moments of frivolity carefully. Life is stressful enough without adding to it unnecessarily.

An abstract state of mind for me is simply being less rigid in my way of seeing the world. Not necessarily thinking outside of the box but maybe turning the box upside down or even standing on another box inside your box to get a different view. In life I’m often comforted by structure and hate taking unnecessary risks but ironically in my photography I feel stifled and uninspired by these things. I guess for me rather than art imitating life, it’s more so, art breaking free from life (in the safest, most non-traumatic way to avoid long term regret and actual consequences cuz if I’m honest I’m still me).

I feel like I’m still at the beginning of exploring this way of thinking and seeing in my creative journey and I’m not sure if people even read anymore, but I plan on documenting things “The Way I See It” as I go along for those last 2 people on earth that still do. (Thanks Mum and Dad!) With that said, onward to a life in abstract.