"I take photographs to define my experiences, to encapsulate these moments and share the earth's most extraordinary places with my friends and all of the aspiring vagabonds and wilderness trekkers that hope to travel one day." ~Michael Anderson

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

-Ira Glass

“ Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like - then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping. —

~Jean Cocteau

"True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist." -Albert Einstein

"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist." -Oscar Wilde

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." - Oscar Wilde

“If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., A Man Without a Country

Anonymous said...

This makes me think of my second (sober) kiss with a boy. I had just met him a week before and he was my stepbrother's friend from boarding school. We all went on a roadtrip together and I ended up spending most of my time with him (my brother was with his girlfriend at the time), then he and my brother's girlfriend spent a few days at our house after the trip. My brother was busy with his girlfriend so I was left to entertain his friend, we watched paranomal activity and he would fall asleep, then wake up and slowly move closer and closer each time he woke back up again... eventually the movie ended and it was time for bed. As I was folding the blankets and turning off the TV he ran and jumped into my bed.. (not okay with my momma!) I told him he couldn't stay, but he had a way to distract me by talking about other things, we ended up staying up the WHOLE night talking and he never kissed me. I left for two days for orientation, and when i got back it was his last night, he came home and fell asleep in my bed as i packed. We woke up the next morning and just laid there looking at eachother, i wondered when he would kiss me and it was starting to be too quite for too long, so i just went for it. We kissed the entire morning and talked in my bed (not thinking about momma walking in...) until he had to leave to catch his flight. We were only able to give a hug goodbye because my brother didn't know what had happened. I still talk to him this day, but haven't seen him in a year and a half - still waiting to see when we will have our second kiss...