Balanced on the mountain

Balanced on the mountain

From a Melanie song, Little Bit of Me: the song goes on ‘with the people all around, who say that I’ve been up too long, and want to bring me down’… It poses questions about perfection and aspiration. And it came to mind looking at an old photo magazine, with a pre-digital football shot, one of the most perfect sports pictures I’ve ever seen.

Brendan Monks of the Daily Mirror shot it, and won a prize in the Ilford photographic awards in 1987: pre-digital and telling the complete story of a goal, and telling it beautifully. And then I wondered whether there are millions of pictures like this one, because some photographers will get a shot this good from every goal they witness. Actually, I think it rather unlikely.

So what do you do in between your best moments? Do you give up and dig the garden instead? Do you bend your efforts to becoming world rally champion? Or do you keep on taking pictures and trying to make them better? It’s an important question, and I’m tempted to answer with a line from a Kris Kristofferson song: ‘ever since the first I had the worst I had was good’ – while any one of us may misplace our Mojo, what we do in our specialist areas on a bad day is probably still not bad.

But what to do during a dry period… Certainly not give up completely, but it may be wise to concentrate on something away from our core interests. It’s a time to explore new areas, possibly to look at other people’s pictures more, and to mug up on the theory behind the pictures. All of these are likely to spark new ideas to try out, and trying amount may get that Mojo fired up again.

And of course I know that it’s much easier to say them to do. Part of what goes on in life is that we gradually learn humility and patience. The period of limited creativity that you’re going through may be necessary to the next step in your development as an artist, or at least as a competent technician. As they say, when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade. And keep on keeping on.