photoflow: my flavor, my picture

we borrow ideas all the time. we see things, "digest" them in our body/mind system, and then they surface in a myriad of ways. usually not as explicitly or directly as this:

in my picture summer e-class, one day our "assignment" was to photograph summer fruit. i noticed a great shot in the group pool by becky, and remembered it. blueberries. that oh so cute and delectable treat. i wanted to borrow becky's idea and make a blueberry photo, too!

as summer wound down and fall arrived, berries were becoming more and more rare in the supermarket. i bought so many baskets of blueberries with the intent of photographing them. but ate them before they had a chance to pose for me! 

finally i did it. i wrangled those berries until i was blue (more like red) in the face ... oh how they roll! i went back to becky's photo to see how many she stacked. how did she get four? maybe there's a mystery toothpick inside that stack of four. otherwise, she has the patience of the gods. my blueberries were rolling and tumbling and scooting all over my counter and onto the floor. i managed three. 

but as you can see, my blueberry shot is totally different than becky's. i love the simplicity of her shot. she called it "zen blueberry." the composition so gentle and flowing. mine is more busy, but maybe that's a reflection of how i felt wrangling blueberries! 

i don't believe there is any such thing as "stealing" ideas. we get ideas from absolutely e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. we encounter. and these things -- sights, sounds, smells, tastes, experiences -- all become a part of who and how we are. our experiences form our particular "flavor." and our flavor comes back out in our photographs (and in everything else we do).

all we can say is a hearty thank you to whoever or whatever inspired us. in this case, thank you becky and thank you blueberries!

even if there is a much more direct link between seeing something and wanting to do the same, there is no such thing as same. impossible. because each one of us is unique. like snowflakes. or blueberries. 


~Robert Adams