The lives of the created ...

Somehow, our creations often have lives of their own. Authors talk of this when they talk shop, how they fight with their characters time and time again. I think most of the time, the characters have the best interest of the story in mind, but that is not always apparent to the author, and so can be amazingly irritating. Fighting with characters who only live in your own mind, think about that ... just who do they think they are, anyway?

Of course, not all characters in stories play nice with their authors. In fact, I've wondered if that isn't the reason some characters get such spectacular endings to their personal tale! Still, I think it oft unwise to take your creator's angst out upon a poor character ... or, for a photographer, to forget to "finish" an image that just didn't quite somehow make it up to what we thought we saw at the moment of creation.

I had such a moment yesterday, when an image I'd originally created several months back just ... stopped me. I hadn't been thinking or stewing over it, and it was from a session with many standout images. There was no reason to even think about that image any more. Still, there was something about the image that gave me a feeling when going through that session looking for other images, that I'd not ... finished it right, somehow. It needed work. It could be so much more, it could be something if only I completed it.

And now, I have. What was there in this image was what was there all along, what somehow I think my eyes and brain could see from the moment I captured it. My mind apparently couldn't grasp the essential part because of attention to what were, in the end, extraneous details.

When I finally eliminated the non-essential and therefore extraneous details, a clear and interesting image appeared with an obvious "treatment" that it needed. And though it is wonderful to see it now, completed and at rest, I feel very silly I couldn't see this all along.

The block of stone needed to have the extraneous stone removed to become the statue it could be. The writer needed to find why her characters were unhappy. And I needed to find the essential elements of that image. In all three examples, there is a certain ... something, I'll call it life ... native to the created. And the creator needs to be attuned to what his creations ask of him in order to achieve the completed work.

Even a creator is wise not to dictate! I am grateful for having found the needs of that image. It is one of my favorites right now. And I am also grateful that, unlike for the author of written stories, my images don't actually argue with me inside my own head!