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The need to inspire
I have been thinking about myself a lot the last few days (BIG surprise there....) and realized that I have an inordinately large need to inspire. People with ADD (which i have not been diagnosed with...thank god, cause taking adderal would kill me) tend to have an inordinate interest in other peoples lives. I have an inordinate interest in inspiring those that I interact with. I do choose to interact primarily with people that I think I CAN inspire. Where do other models and photographer clock in on this one? Do you think that is one reason some models like to think of themselves as muses? Do you try and inspire everyone around you, or do you limit to select individuals? Do you care at all about inspiring others? Do you want your work to inspire the viewer, or do you create entirely for yourself? Mar 12 06 02:40 pm Link I get inspired and I inspire people here is some words that may Inspire you or confuse you as long as I made my mark i'm good  Well, I agree, to disagree, about agreeing, to disagree, and to disagree about agreeing, would be agreeing to disagree, so do I agree or disagree? And do you agree to disagree with me? or do you disagree to agree with me? Mar 12 06 02:51 pm Link I'll take a stab at this one. My favorite models I consider co-creators of the images we get on film. I have always done my best work - and best received work - when working with a model that challenges me with her ideas and themes and ones that I have worked with multiple times. Since I work with so many models themes and interests - I find that I have to learn more about different techniques and locations - (and actually have been taken to task about not having a "Focus" in my images here). (And my next images will make it worse - being 1940's pinup re-creations - lol) Several - like my5teriona #104177 and Raverchic #40800 to name two. - Have always inspired me to be better - to get out there and learn more - to make our ideas work, without being dimwitted or boring. So, yea, muse is not too strong of a word for somebody like myself. But, this may well be split along the commercial/pro and dedicated amateur - divide. VintageVista Mar 12 06 02:58 pm Link I never imagine that I can inspire anyone. I'm not sure why. I think it's the ultimate complement. Mar 12 06 03:00 pm Link Now there's a question. It never occurred to me, before I started modeling, that I could inspire anything. It's not so much that I didn't think I could, as that it was so much the furthest thing from my mind that it never occurred to me that I could, either. I remember the first time I heard feedback like that. I was still very new when I shot with a photographer who was intimidating to me for a number of reasons, not least of which were that he's extremely talented, well known, and sort of brusque in his manner. It was put up or shut up time - my first really real shoot. As I was getting changed afterwards, he said, out of nowhere and with no preamble, "You inspire me." I can't imagine hearing anything better from a photographer. My experience has rippled outward from there. I often receive correspondence from women of size who say that seeing my images inspires them to find a way to accept and love themselves. Even more amazingly, I hear something similar from slender, gorgeous models, whom it never would have occurred to me would relate to what I'm doing. Every time it happens I am surprised and delighted and humbled anew. What a magnificent thing, to be the catalyst for inspiration. Each time it happens, it feels like magic. Mar 12 06 08:08 pm Link I don't need ispiration. Is that a weird thing to say? Sure I need luck but inspiration as in new ideas - no. I used to write down every idea that went through my head but then I stopped because I realized that the forty of fifty years I have left is not going to be enough to finish the ones I already have. My problem is with what happens between my the idea in my head and the finished picture. I just can't get the stuff or right models I need for the shoots quickly enough. Like a freaking Sphynx cat that I've been trying to get for a shoot for the past year. Why do I take pictures? In my case it's pathological. At a young age photography got mixed up in my head with things that are actually important - comfort, security, survival. And I love it! Mar 13 06 03:19 pm Link I feel exactly the same way. At least I think I do. How do we know what someone else is feeling? And inspiration is a feeling. People can say they are inspired and I believe them, but do they have the same feeling I have when I look at the picture or do they have the feeling I WANT them to have? Can't know. I think you, Lapis, are an inspiring model. Never met you, but looking at your photos, I can imagine the process and you are part of it. I had one model, easily the most beautiful woman I have ever seen naked. But, hard to say but true, she was thick as a plank. And did not inspire me. She was clearly not part of the project. She didn't understand what I wanted. I would MUCH rather work with a less-than-perfect genius. I particularly like photographing artists. (For reasons obscure to me, I seem to have lots of musicians sit for me. I count them as artists.) Sometimes it is the models' bodies, sometimes how they move. But sometimes it just all clicks. I love to be inspired. I'm not sure I have inspired a model in the studio, but I think my photographs of a model have inspired her. At least they are polite and sometimes say so. I have often thought of this another way: a model, for me almost always a woman, can inspire me with her form, I just try to record it, or impressions of it, and I have always wondered what it must be like to LIVE inside a work of art. Mar 13 06 04:32 pm Link External inspiration is a tricky thing to think about. When it does happen, it's the result of an interaction, more than externally supplied. And even the best interactions have no guarantee of success because inspiration demands sharp wits while turning a problem over and over, then maybe a dulling of the wits when putting it into words or practice. I know that didn't seem to make sense, but read it again and maybe it will. Someone said "inspiration is 90% sweat," or "creativity" is. Something like that. Visual ideas don't come out yer ass. They percolate in the brain and get rolled around in the subconscious during sleep and get sketched and eventually become real. Sometimes something unplanned looks right in the viewfinder, but that still means thinking about why and how to keep that feeling/topic/attitude going for a year. I've had two, maybe three, muses in my life and even they didn't keep my mind full of new ideas. New ideas wear you out. That's one reason I keep shooting the same old shit for a year after it's already old - it's easier to keep doing what I've been doing than to admit it's old and find something new, something no one else is doing, and begin once again something that will only lead to the same old, same old. Sitting here thinking about what I'll do once I've got the folio complete is frustrating as hell. I read fiction and philosophy and photo and try to imagine integrating some stuff from them, but can't visualize it. I think maybe if I use some new and different background my pictures will take on some new urgency, but they won't. Same old, same old with a different setting. Change cameras, film? Shoot only horizontals? These are all working backwards. Gotta start with the vision and I don't think anyone can inject vision. -Don For the last week I've been fantasizing about getting a Leica MP and a 35mm f2 lens for same so I could walk around and do street photography like Cartier Bresson did. I've got cameras that are perfectly good for street photography. Lots of them. When I use those cameras and actually go do it and like what I'm making, then maybe I could think of a Leica. Until then, I'm smoking rope. Mar 13 06 06:44 pm Link I think street photography can be very inspiring. What I am trying to get at is the NEED to INSPIRE others, however. I, as a model and a person, interact with people and have noticed that I have an excessive NEED to be a muse.... Mar 18 06 12:36 pm Link Angel Tara wrote: Get your head out of your butt Angel...I have seen your photos, and it is obvious to me that you are EXTREMELY inspirational to many photographers, and probably people in general, as well. Your modesty is alluring, but do not be that hard on yourself. Accept the fact that you also are inspiring. Mar 18 06 12:38 pm Link I have other needs but I am thumos like that. Mar 18 06 12:40 pm Link Jack D Trute wrote: Are you trying to INSPIRE people to read greek philosophy? Mar 18 06 12:42 pm Link Oh sorry, I meant to say I am empty inside like a thurmos. Mar 18 06 12:44 pm Link Jack D Trute wrote: Did Jack take a big dump this morning? Mar 18 06 12:45 pm Link Lapis wrote: HI Mar 18 06 12:45 pm Link D. Brian Nelson wrote: Hmmm... Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of that documentary, "Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye" and I've been having similar thoughts. I rarely carry a camera anymore unless I have a planned shoot of some kind. My cameras are all 35mm SLRs or bigger, so it's just not convenient to carry one around everywhere. But, I think we forget hat pictures are everywhere if nly we had the eye to see them. After shooting the same subject matter over and over again I think we lose the "eye". What's worse, I don't know if I've even ever had it. LOL! Mar 18 06 12:47 pm Link ~Krista~ wrote: Not yet, I come here for that. I was speaking in a metaphorical nature. Mar 18 06 12:49 pm Link Most of my insparation comes from anger. I don't kow why I'm not very angree any more so I have less to inspire me. I love to make people think I love to force them to see the world in a different view. I know I don't inspire all photographers and some I do. I think finding a muse is a personal thing just like finding a very good lover, or your best friend there has to be a connection if it isn't at the shoot then it doesn't work. Yes we can both get great images, but if the connection isn't there no musing will happen. It can't be found by a casting call or looking at someones book, you have to meet the person and work with them sometimes more than once to see what can happen in this world of art. I love it when I see a photographer start to get exited and just want to keep shooting all day with me. I can see them getting off on the images on what ever is going into that camera. It is kinda like sex only not. As a photographer if I get the perfect image wow I'm happy for days yipes it was great I need a cigarette (and that was just photographing an animal. I was told once I was a muse, It was by another model, Mar 18 06 12:55 pm Link Iona Lynn, Yes, at times, I would agree with what you stated. When someone messes up something or spews crap or is just terrible then it does inspire me at times to just do it right. Bad ideas can often inspire me as much as good ones. Sometimes if it is done well then I just say well that was done right so why do it again and be a copycat. Mar 18 06 01:02 pm Link https://img3.modelmayhem.com/060318/13/ … 7e5be9.jpg aww ok it is not a human model but he showed up on time and was not a Diva. Mar 18 06 01:03 pm Link Iona Lynn wrote: i think what you say here is very true and I often move and change my boundaries or set boundaries of what i will do depending on who i am creating with . Mar 18 06 01:24 pm Link Jack D Trute wrote: Very good point jack about beign inspired by crap. Mar 18 06 01:30 pm Link Wags tail. Mar 18 06 01:32 pm Link Lapis wrote: You ARE a muse, Lapis. The need is merely to explore your power and enjoy the devotion of those who are lucky enough to bask in that. Mar 18 06 01:33 pm Link oldguysrule wrote: I totally agree , LAPIS you are a wondeful and loved muse!!! Mar 18 06 01:44 pm Link |
