How Photography Helps My Writing

Toss out the bullet point laden PowerPoint presentation.  Toss out the lecture.  Toss out the twenty-eight chapter, seven pound book.  Toss out the How To titled blogs (not mine).  Toss out Wikipedia.  Yes, by taking pictures your writing will improve.  Unfortunately this will not be a neat five chapter set, summary review followed up by chapter questions presentation.  As a matter of fact, you might be hard pressed to discover how taking pictures consciously improves your writing...but your subconscious will understand.

Roy Williams wrote a book in 2001 titled Accidental Magic, published by the coolest publisher on the planet, Bard Press.  Roy gave random black and white photographs to graduates of his Wizard Academy and asked them to interpret the pictures.  Roy's managing editor, Janet Thomae asks:

Have you ever been so captivated by a photo that you wondered what was happening the moment it was captured?  Ever imagine what he subject was thinking or what was going through the mind of the photographer?

Roy says:

A photograph is a window through which we can peer into another world.

In addition to his student's work, Roy devotes sixteen chapters crammed with techniques to help improve your writing.

Roy Williams' book has nothing to do with how I believe photography will improve your writing.

To help improve our creativity and stock our writer's well, Julia Cameron teaches us to go on Artist's Dates.  Ironically, I began to go on Artist's Dates about the same time I got a new digital camera.  The camera helped to capture memorable moments from my outings.  Although I had owned a couple of cameras in my life, I wasn't a camera person.  Looking for stuff to take pictures of was not natural for me.  So I had to force myself and this helped me to become more aware.  And the act of becoming more aware is what has helped to improve my writing.

Well that was neat and tidy David.  About as clear as a London morning I'd say.

To develop awareness we must look beyond that what is.  It is the process of looking beyond that feeds data to our subconscious.  Combine that what is to that what appears to be to that what seems like, and soon that what was has taken on an all together different meaning - as long as you come back to it in a few days.  Value and meaning are what rises to the top after a few days brew.

It is the process of looking for new, unusual and different things to take pictures of, that feeds substance to our subconscious to reappear in our writing.

The quiz my dear students for this lesson...will never be :-)

Cannon camera by my new friend Bokeh.Queen~Away's on Flickr.

London Bridge by Martin-James on Flickr.

Comments

[steve sherlock]

yes, yes, yes, death by PowerPoint can be avoid when you let pictures tell the story.

And you are a Roy Williams fan! How surprising. Not!

I get the week off to a good start without the MondayMorningMemo!