April 2009: Challenge your fears

Dear Friends,

Happy Spring to all of you! The longer days are loosening the grip of winter and the receding and slowly rising thermometer is causing all of us to use any excuse to be outside. The spring energy seems to bring feelings of optimism and enthusiasm for activities, that until recently, felt more like “work” and less like “fun”. I think it’s a great idea to take this positive approach to all our thoughts and actions and see where it takes us. Living with a “glass half full” approach to life shouldn’t be reserved just for the spring.

We’ve been speaking in the last two Newsletters to using our available resources and time to reawaken our creative side.  By now I’m hopeful that you’ve used your camera more than once, and experienced, at the very least, some reminder of the joys making images brings you. This has certainly been true for me. I’ve been making time, with greater frequency, to make images in my own “backyard” and it has forced me to face something that comes up with regularity: fear… fear of mediocrity, fear of failure, fear of having nothing to “say”. I don’t think there is one of you reading this Newsletter who hasn’t experienced these same thoughts about something in your life. The important thing is to challenge your fears and not let them keep you from doing something you love.

I believe the greatest threat to creativity is fear. We get more conservative with our work as our fear in and of the world increases. We stop taking risks, stop breaking the rules.  Sometimes we try to conquer our fear by placing controls on our own creativity or retreat into our fear rather than advancing into our own creativity. All this manages to accomplish is to keep us in a fearful state. In the book, Art & Fear, the authors tells us that “What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don’t, quit.” Which do you want to do?

I was recently in a situation photographing away from home. I had gone with the intention of working one way but once there found I couldn’t because it just didn’t feel safe to have my head under a dark cloth. The uncomfortable fear of “unsafe” rattled my cage, I felt failure creeping into my thoughts and I was angry with myself. Fortunately, with a little time to focus on the problem I realized I had prepared well as I’d brought along both pinhole and plastic cameras. By working through my fear and changing how I was looking at the situation, I was able to have a great week photographing and made entirely different images than I had planned to. I have worked with both plastic cameras and pinholes for many years but didn’t expect either to be the primary way I was to make images on this trip. However, by changing my thought patterns I was able to cease to be afraid of failure (by not making my preconceived images) to joy and excitement (by finding new ways to experience this adventure). When I realized I had nothing to fear but fear (of failure) then I was freed to try anything. Maybe I made some good images, maybe not, but either way I had more practice setting my fears aside and enjoying the new experience.

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933, First Inaugural Address

With these words FDR reassured a shaky and scared nation in 1933. Those words ring true today. I am not smart enough to offer either political or economic advice, but I do believe that the greatest threat to creativity is fear. Try not to let economic fear or political fear or any other type of fear enter your creative process. If you find yourself fearful, examine the situation. If you should be fearful for your safety, act appropriately. If the only thing you are afraid of is not being able to make your kind of images, then take a deep breath and say to your self “I have nothing to fear but fear itself!” and go make your images, fearlessly.

All the best until next month,
Tillman and Donna