Blank Pages

My 3rd grade teacher once handed us a blank sheet of paper and told us to draw anything that came to mind while she played "The Nutcracker" on the old classroom record player.

I remember closing my eyes and immersing myself in the beautiful, magical notes of the song.

I longed to fill my blank page with the images the song swirled inside my head but I could not. I was a woeful artist.

That blank page and my inability to create anything adequate on it haunted me for years.

In college I thought: Well I can't be an artist so maybe I can become a writer and describe the images trapped in my head.

I wrote a couple of books over the next few years but the colors and images inside my head were still trapped. The blank page continued to haunt me.

I turned my efforts to fill that page with photography.

My first attempts were as inept as my drawing skills. I chopped off peoples heads, one of my fingers were always in the shot, I snapped billions of pictures where only a handful were passable enough to pin to a family album-but I felt something stir inside of me.

I kept shooting. And shooting. And shooting.

Digital cameras caught on and started quickly replacing film and I was suddenly free to shoot as many pictures as I wanted.

I became a mad woman. I took pictures of everything and slowly the blank page that haunted me for so many years began to fill with the swirls and colors of my minds eye.

When a writer or artist is asked: How do you find the time to do what you do? How do you do it?

I understand their answer.

You write because you cannot not write.

You draw because you cannot not draw.

I don't go anywhere without some form of camera. I've become known as "the picture taker".

My page is less blank these days. I'm obnoxious in my passion to fill it with my images but have found nothing but support from family and friends in my pursuit.

Thank you Mrs. Traci for placing that page in front of my 8 year old person.

and thanks to my friends and family for your sighs and patient smiles as I make you all pause so I can take one more shot. Just one more. Wait...one more...

Photo blogs of mine:


Vita non est vivere sed valere vita est

Mobile City: Iphone Images

A Kats Eye View