It’s been a bit of time since I last blogged so I thought I would give you all (both of you! Hi Mom!) a warning that in the days to come I am going to ramp up my posts. Now would be a good time to go on vacation to an internet dead spot or have your house rewired or covered in tinfoil.

First a bit of news and a thought or two. The first bit of news is that somehow through a very odd set of miracles and small acts of God I now have fiber optic internet service at my very rural house in Vermont. While this has nothing to do with any of you it has rocked my world! Suddenly I no longer have to wait for email to download or photographs to upload. And videos, which I usually never watched because they took so long to play and were always interrupted with more downloading, are now instantaneous! So this is how the rest of world operated for that last few years! I now understand all those adorable kitten YouTube references and how you can kill hours watching flash mobs badly singing Les Mis songs. Never mind!

The first thought is that nothing is more important in any creative endeavor than time, as in time spent creating. For photography much of this time is spent doing nothing and just waiting and it seems like it is time wasted. But it is anything but wasted. It is absolutely necessary. This thought came back to me when my friend Lisa came back from photographing wild horses. She said that most of her time was spent just waiting and watching and waiting some more. “Every so often there would be 5 minutes of action but most of the time there would be nothing going on. And yet if I hadn’t been out there waiting I would’ve missed whatever happened.”

This made me think of all the time I have spent wandering around looking while I’m out photographing and all the time I have spent lost in quiet contemplation while I am writing. I used to say that for every hour I spent photographing only 10 minutes of it would be spent taking a picture. Same is true for writing and I am guessing same is true for all creative pursuits. The rule is unless you spend the time you are unlikely to find the success you want. Seems simplistic I know, bordering on idiotic but in this instant success, I want it now world we live in one of the hardest but most effective things we can do to improve any of our creative pursuits is to slow down and give them the gift of time.

And finally, in my next several blog posts I am going to announce a new workshop concept that I am very excited about that I have been working on with a couple of friends since last fall. A reinvention and a new way of approaching your photography coming to your computer soon!