Piazza Banchi, Genova

I think one’s art goes as far and as deep as one’s love goes. I see no reason to paint but that.
Andrew Wyeth.

Exploring the depth of my love for a place seems like an inspiring reason to take photographs too.  There is more passion, more depth and emotion, when you turn your camera on something you love.

Piazza Banchi, the place where I buy my pink flowers when in Genova.  Taken one winter's night, January, 2012.

(Note: this was taken after the sun had gone down.  I spun my Canon EOS 5D MkII's ISO up to someplace around 6000 (thank you to Canon for this option) then handheld the camera to see what I might get without a flash or a tripod.)

Art and Fear

"Artists come together with the clear knowledge that when all is said and done, they will return to their studio and practice art alone. Period. That simple truth may be the deepest bond we share. The message across time from the painted bison and the carved ivory seal speaks not of the differences between the makers of that art and ourselves, but of the similarities. Today these similarities lay hidden beneath urban complexity -- audience, critics, economics, trivia -- in a self-conscious world. Only in those moments when we are truly working on our own work do we recover the fundamental connection we share with all makers of art. The rest may be necessary, but it's not art. Your job is to draw a line from your art to your life that is straight and clear."

- David Bayles & Ted Orland (Art and Fear)

found over on The Drawing Board.

Holy Light, Genova

We are lonesome animals.
We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome.
One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say and to feel
‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’
You’re not as alone as you thought.
— John Steinbeck

Quote sourced from the blog of the truly gifted photographer, Steve McCurry.

Yesterday, as we worked through our day, Hanna, Francesca and I found time to pop into my favourite church here in Genova ... located in Piazza Maddalena.

I was giving Hanna a little information about photography and explained ... there are all the rules but then you can break them and, sometimes, that’s where the magic happens.

This is one of those shots, for me anyway.  I was handholding my camera in an incredibly dark church, kind of falling in love with the light and voila, the light let me have a little of its beautiful self.

Cees Nooteboom, photography

Photography is a more intense way of “looking”. No photographer simply travels. He cannot allow himself the luxury of just looking around. He does not see landscapes; he sees photographs, images of reality as it might appear in a photograph.
Cees Nooteboom in 1982 in the Holland Herald, KLM’s in-flight magazine.

Uncertainty, Innovation, and the Alchemy of Fear, by Jonathan Fields

The ability to live in the question long enough for genius to emerge is a touchstone of creative success. In fact, a 2008 study published in the Journal of Creative Behavior revealed tolerance for ambiguity to be “significantly and positively related” to creativity.

I had to smile.  I believe I might just have that tolerance for ambiguity.  It’s been so much of my life ... the uncertainty of what’s next and how to go forward.  It might even be said that doing things like moving alone to Istanbul, in 2003, had a degree of seeking out that uncertainty-washed place.  Mostly it’s without realising it.  It seems to be me. 

Jonathan Fields has written an interesting article you might enjoy if you’re working as a creative person: There may, in fact, be a very thin slice of creators who arrive on the planet more able to go to and even seek out that uncertainty-washed place that destroys so many others. But, for a far greater number of high-level creators, across all fields, the ability to be okay and even invite uncertainty in the name of creating bigger, better, cooler things is trained. Sometimes with great intention, other times without even realizing it.