When the Muse Stings
A creative moment can strike like a spark from a flint, whether you light it yourself or that moment steps up and introduces itself to you.
Every morning as I’m preparing my coffee I think about what the day might hold. I assess my mood, my plans, and let my thoughts drift as I’m standing idly scooping out the coffee from the cannister and waiting for the boiling water to turn the granules into that liquid elixir. I decide which mug I’m going to use before I even begin the ritual. There’s usually no planning in that – it’s an instinctive look over the collection and my hand reaching for the one that feels right for that day. If I’ve woken with an idea, my choice is made because of that – what message I am wanting to convey with images and words. The creativity works both ways – will the mug dictate the message or will the message dictate the mug.
Photography for me isn’t simply aiming my phone or my camera and beginning to snap. It’s thinking about composition and colour and trying to create a vignette that will help me to tell a story. Still, there are times when it’s just snap and go because I’ve seen what I needed or wanted and there’s little more I can do to make it better. For every one photograph I use I might take 5 or 10 or 20. I’ve been known to take more.
And then I meet a morning like today. And the mug doesn’t matter. And setting up and styling and looking for the sunlight or the background is inconsequential because what I was meant to share came flying into my frame, closing in on my face.
I didn’t even realize what was coming towards me. I had a thought about what I was trying to do and as I raised my phone to take the shot, my hand moved a little because the coffee mug was too hot the way I was holding it. As my hand shook and my thumb snapped the shot as it was, I realized that an annoying mosquito was flying into my face. Instinctively, when I waved my phone to move it away, that pest took a nosedive right into my coffee. I did “rescue” it by scooping it out, but it was beyond saving. So was the coffee.
After I poured fresh coffee, I looked through the photos and the last one I took, the unplanned photo, the one where the mosquito was zooming in with radar precision, thinking it had found a host to drill its stinger into, I began to laugh, because that was the story. That was the shot and while the mosquito isn’t clearly defined because it was mid flight it was everything I felt like saying this morning.
Keep your eyes open and watch your surroundings because you never know when something is coming along to smack you in the face – be it an insect – or inspiration. Creative ideas often flow best when you don’t overthink – or get to finish that first cup of coffee.
