Do you know why you do what you do? Do you know the exact reason? What it is that drives your passion? Is it merely because you enjoy it? I've come to believe that there is something more than just merely enjoying it.
For a long time I was seriously questioning why I was doing photography. I was feeling that if I couldn't say exactly why I was doing it there was no way I could be successful or, more importantly, genuine in my work. It was starting to worry me greatly. How can an artist, or really anyone for that matter, find any real success or joy in what they do if they don't know WHY? I questioned my husband about it incessantly. As far as I could find within myself about why I do what I do were reasons that were selfish; "I like it when people like my stuff," etc. But my husband being the supportive and insightful man that he is gave a resounding "no," that there was more to it for me than that. He said he thinks I do what I do because I love the "new." What does that mean?
Luckily he was listening to NPR a few days later where an interview was given by Simon Sinek who wrote a book about exactly what I was worried about. He said that all of us have a WHY, a basic purpose for what we do. And the way to find that why is to think back as far as you can to your happiest moment. The farther back you can remember you'll start to notice repeating themes or patterns in your experiences and upbringing. I read his book a few months later (there were many on the wait list for it at the library) and while it didn't quite tell me the exact method for finding my WHY, it did get me revved up for trying to find it. So I took what little advice I could glean from the one chapter on the subject and began to search for my why.
Let me tell you, my husband knows me better than I know myself.
I thought back as far as I could remember to the moments when I was the happiest and most excited. They were moments when my mother bought me a clean fresh new pad of drawing paper, or a new spiral notebook, or a new box of crayons or pencils. I loved what those items represented. They were new, never been used and, most importantly, waiting for me to make something new from them. I would draw pictures and write stories. I would create new things from the new things I bought. Turning them from what they were into something else. Creation. I wasn't very good at drawing (to this day I am terrible at perspective) and I'm a terrible writer (remember, words allude me). But at the time they were the only outlets for what I saw in my mind.
But I don't think my true passion for creation was fully formed until this one specific memory I have. We were at my aunt's house in Germany. She had placed out for us pieces of translucent colored paper and construction paper, glue, scissors, string and a stick. From those supplies we created lanterns, cutting the construction paper into lattices and the translucent paper into little panes to fill the empty lattice windows. We attached string to our lanterns and then to our sticks. And then we placed a candle inside and we walked with our never-before-existed lanterns around the neighborhood for St. Martinstag. I felt such joy and pride walking around with my lantern. I created something new but also something of use. Some of my fondest memories are of my aunt and I as we "bastelnd" (tinkered, crafted) on her kitchen table during our visits.
I do what I do because I love the "new." I love creating things that weren't there before. My husband when he first suggested this idea said so because of all the knitting needles he said I "have" to buy in order to do such-and-such a project. In a way he's right. The potential of what a new set of needles can help me create excites me.
But how did this turn into photography? None of my fondest memories include a camera. But it all comes together. I still love to tell stories. Yet I am terrible with words. I can't manipulate them into inspiring or colorful phrases. However, in a photograph I am able to tell my stories. I still love to draw. But I would never show you any of my sketches. They are beyond awful. Yet I still have these images in my mind, many that often accompany the stories that I want to tell. A photograph allows me to create those images that haunt my brain. And from those stories and pictures in my head, with the aid of a new costume or prop (and sometimes even an old costume or prop), I am able to create something new again. Something that never existed before. Something that can be of use to the world. And that is WHY I do what I do.
Do you know your WHY?