CREATIVITY
One could argue that people a born with a "talent" for art, or for numbers, or anything really. But I don't believe that people are born with talent. I believe that we are eternal beings with talents that we have built over time. Yes, over eons of time. I don't know if we chose them, fell into them, or just picked something at random to try. Maybe we failed miserably at something, or got bored and switched our focus, like a college student changing majors. But I believe that the talents we show here in life we not just given to us, or dropped on us, but developed over time before we ever arrived her on earth.
We can talk more about the spiritual in some other forum, but I mention this to make the point that artistic talent is something that is learned and practiced over time. And if someone is seemingly born with a talent, that talent came from another plane of existence where that person must have further honed that talent.
Everyone that is excellent at something, whether it is teaching, art, maths or stonework, became great by learning the art and practicing it and preparing for the performance you are seeing. Many people cheapen the effort that someone has put in to become great at something by saying, "you are just good at that kind of thing," or "you have such a natural talent for that," or "that kind of thing is easy for you." The artist of math is not just good at math and it's not just so easy for them because they were born with some mathematics textbook in their brain. They spent the time to learn it and understand it. The same is true for a painter, a sculptor or a photographer. We found an interest that we pursued and learned the science and the process behind the art and then we tried our hand at it and failed, and tried again.
I have been practicing the art of photography for almost a thirty-five years. I became exceptionally good in the darkroom just in time to abandon the darkroom for digital photography. I have been practicing digital photography now since the turn of the century. I have, on occasion, experienced beginner's luck, but my success in photography is largely due to constant study, practice, review and personal assessment. Passion for an art is a beautiful thing. I have a passion for seeing, for observing and for telling stories. The images you see here were created over years of traveling, searching, and waiting.
