This photo was taken on August 4, 2011 but I never posted it here (update: I moved the post to the date the image was taken rather than the date I wrote this blog post which was September 10, 2011).

There are a few reasons but mostly because it seems like I have seen a ton of macro images floating around the web & the photog forums lately and this image wasn’t taken by a macro lens. I had my 85mm on the camera and Gavin & I were walking past some flowers on our way through the parking lot to the science museum. We were both taken by this butterfly so I snapped some shots. When I got home and looked at them in Bridge I wondered if there was anything special about them. I wondered about how they compared to the amazing macro images I had been seeing lately. I wondered if they were good enough.

Then this morning I came across a talented photographer’s blog, Brooke Snow, I hadn’t seen before and read something that made me stop right then and come post a few images I have recently shot then almost discarded. I can relate to the feeling of not having shot anything new or creative. Do the images I shoot mean something to me? Well, yes because they are of the people and places I love and hold close to my heart. Do they resonate with anyone else? I don’t know but I do know that I am at a point with my photography where I am ready to let go of that question. I shoot from my heart and I know that it is time to stop worrying about how many times someone else has shot a beautiful butterfly. It is time to stop comparing.

This quote from C.S. Lewis that Brooke used in her post really spoke to me so I will end with it here too.

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”
– C. S. Lewis