Our first day at the Discovery Workshop was spent with heavy introspection, focusing on knowing who we were as artists, to create the best possible presentation of ourselves and interpreting that into photography.
Rick Chapman asked the group to bring a self portrait to the workshop. It didn’t necessarily need to be an image of you, but a likeness or representation of who you are and where you are at this moment in time.
At the moment I took this image, I was hurried. Feeling like I needed to have my glass filled up and running over with knowledge. Reflective, yet constrained within the walls of what was around me. Transparent, that what you see is what you get.
Once at the workshop, we broke into small groups and shared our images. (Image via Me Ra Koh)
Part of our small group conversation included the following statements about each image:
I see
I feel
I imagine
What I found so powerful was that when we described each other’s images, we found that there were themes and underlying discoveries that hadn’t been realized yet in each image. Perhaps these were deliberate or unintentional, but in either case, deep emotions came bubbling to the surface for much of the group. Emotional spaces between strangers now became intimate, through these personal interactions and looking past the surface of each other’s images into insights about their lives, fears and aspirations. I found it difficult to open up so deeply to people I didn’t know—but at the same time, it was comforting to be among such trust and understanding.
We then transitioned to other elements of creativity, further deepening our discovery of who we are as artists, with a movement exercise that was inspiring and freeing in so many ways. Movement, words, and cray-pas brought me to a new image:
I am filled with life-giving breath along the journey.
I am wings, powerful and prepared for the destination.
I am weightless; graceful, strong and enduring.
Our next exercise was then to create a new self-portrait, who we now felt we were. And what I created felt more alive, driven with new emotion: filled with the deep, awakening breath I was taking on my path to re-discovering myself as an artist.
I actually say that I re-discovered myself as an artist. Too often I find myself getting caught up in the day-to-day of deadlines, being a mom, and keeping clients fulfilled that I forget to step back and remember what took me down this career path in the first place. Me Ra said, “What do Self Portraits and Discovering the Artist Within have to do with your photography business?”
Answer: Every Thing
It was freeing on so many levels to discover myself like this—and it has since translated and resonated itself into every facet of life since then.
