My friends, I would still be me without my camera. It is true. I don't walk around everywhere with my DSLR slung around my neck. I don't have an assortment of filters in my bag. I don't have alarms set on my phone for every morning to get me up for golden hour (although, during the past two summers I, in fact, did). But over the past two weeks I've had quite the revelation about myself.
Looming in my Bridge workflow are ten images that still need to be edited. And for two weeks I did not work on them. At all. The last time I took out my camera for a shoot was September 5. I even looked it up in my phone to check. It has been a month and a half since I released my shutter.
And I didn't miss it one bit.
What??!!
I didn't miss it at all. In fact, I didn't want to work on any of my images. I didn't want to bring out my camera. I didn't want to have anything to do with photography. And this worried me, but I realized something about it and it actually made me feel better about myself.
I am not meant to do only one thing.
For two weeks I played with my kids. I fixed up my house. I made Family Home Evening kits and file folder games for my kids. I sat and read and knitted. And I had so much fun doing all of it. I didn't worry myself with giving myself time to sit and edit a photo because I felt obligated to do it. I didn't force myself to come up with an image to photograph because I felt obligated to create one every week. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I learned that there are a lot of creative outlets that I want to explore. Creation is my passion and there are millions of ways to create.
My husband calls me a "passion butterfly." I flit from one thing to the next. And that's ok. I will most definitely continue to create conceptual photographs, but it may not be my primary focus, though a huge chunk of what I do. And so if my camera were to be taken from me one day I don't think I would feel much remorse, because I have a so many interests and ways that I am able to fulfill my creative needs.
What about you? Are you still you without your camera?