I have recently been through a period of fallow; a time when I have felt the need to read, listen and reflect; a time during which many thoughts, ideas and feelings have been almost perceptibly shaking down and clearing. I love this process of consideration and learning which takes place beyond the purely visual. It seems odd sometimes that a lover of photography can go through fairly lengthy times of not wanting to look at photographs – neither his own nor those of anybody else. I do feel though that the visual aspect of one’s sensibility is tremendously enhanced by engaging with other disciplines – music, poetry, prose, political ideas, philosophy to name just a few – and that coming out of such a period of thinking – one outside the boundaries of one’s normal thoughts – engenders a creative momentum which adds much to one’s familiar and habitual medium (in my case photography). I suppose it is natural to frequently experience this re-emerging at the onset of Spring but I now have the inkling of an unstoppable upthrust of motivation and inspiration.

Inspiration is something new I have started to include in this blog; the linking to sites and ideas which pull me along and make me remember, during those frequent times of forgetting, why I feel driven to create. This clip of Benjamin Zander – from what I believe to be perhaps the most inspiring website on the planet, TED.com – sums up for me why creatively engaging with life can be such a thrilling experience. It also serves as a reminder that, whatever we choose to do, the ripples and resonances of our actions may well reach and touch others’ lives in ways we might never imagine.