If you’ve ever read the Dr. Seuss story ‘Oh, the places you’ll go!‘ you’ll know about a feared destination called ‘The waiting place’. It’s basically a place where people are waiting for things to happen, a form of limbo if you will…and I think it’s fair to say that 2012 has been pretty much a year of ‘The waiting place’ for me. Waiting for the renovations to be finished, waiting to see if I’ve been successful in applying for my own job, waiting for our eldest child to start going to sleep without 2 hours of coaxing, waiting for our youngest child to just go to sleep, waiting for the chance to get back into exercise, waiting, waiting, waiting.
But the whole point of the ‘Waiting place’ in ‘Oh, the places you’ll go!’ is that’s it’s very easy to get stuck there and wallow in your self pity. If you want to get out, you need to put in some effort. So I have decided to break free of my wallowing, and declare 2013 my year of creativity!
So what the hell does that mean?
Good question. I’ve worked with, and been dazzled by, genuinely creative people, and I do not include myself in their number. When I worked in film and TV I was the Producer or a Production Manager, which is basically a nice way of saying I was kept as far away from the creative process as possible. And with good cause, if there were ever a battle between the chaos and anarchy of creativity and the structure and organisation of order…I will be there with my ‘Hurray for structure’ banner.
However, I have always admired the end result of creativity and have always harboured a desire to be more creative. I love music and film and photography and various other things where people have ignored the beautiful structure of order…and just been creative. The challenge has always been to get involved in the actual process of being creative rather than just admiring what other people do. But this is not easy, because to be truly creative you need to have a singular vision and belief in what you do…which is very tricky to have when you’ve never really done it before.
For all it’s ‘Waiting place’iness, this year has actually been a really good year for me creatively. I’ve started really getting into photography, and I’ve started trying to do new stuff with my video work. But I think I’ve treated it as a pleasant distraction from the more mundane work…rather than something to focus my attention on.
So for the next year, I’m going to actively embrace the creative process as an opportunity, rather than an entertaining by-product.
That was sufficiently wanky…what does it really mean?
Well for starters I’m going to do some singing lessons. If I’m willing to be seen in public in a triathlon suit…then I can no longer claim that I refrain from public singing out of a sense of common decency. Plus I really like singing…it’s just that my preferred venue is an empty beach where the only thing that can possible hear me is the unfortunate dog I’m walking.
I’m going to pester O’nev into giving me a photography masterclass…and I’m going to try and take some photos that I can enter in a few competitions…and I’m going to set aside time to go and take photos, rather than trying to fit them in around some other activity.
I’m going to finally shoot my short docos on Melbourne people I admire and get them up on YouTube.
But, most importantly I’m going to start putting my work out there…and wait for the internet to tell me how much they hate it. After all, there’s no one’s advice you should take more sagely than an anonymous loner with a keyboard.
So here are my favourite photos that I took this year, let me know your thoughts.
Unfortunately WordPress isn’t playing nice with ‘media’ at the moment…so for the time being you’ll have to click through to Flickr to see all of them…but here’s five to get you started.
