Last week Art Center hosted a lecture by Annie Leibovitz. Some friends of mine (also Art Center Alumni) and I went. Although it was a very poorly organized event by the College, and despite the fact we ended up standing during the entire presentation despite our getting there almost an hour early and certainly before most other attendees..(does one detect a note of bitterness??) It was all in all a nice presentation.

So many times I am disappointed in lectures and discussions and panels done by many professional organizations. And frankly I was a bit skeptical walking into this one, but hey, like her or not, it’s Annie Leibovitz. A very successful photographer, no matter how you look at it. And given it was all of a 3-mile drive to attend, it would have been silly not to go.

It was not a long presentation, only about an hour. It was mostly revolving around the release of her new book. There were a couple of images that I thought were stunning, but what I mostly got out of attending was a push. A not so little nudge. A reminder as to why I started taking photos in the first place. That inner feeling that at least I tend to loose over time, doing the day to day “work” of being a photographer. One that thankfully can be revived by seeing other work that inspires you, or someone saying something that either gives you that “ah-ha” moment or that you can completely relate to.

This particular lecture, pointed out to me that besides producing images for my clients, which is absolutely necessary, and I ABSOLUTELY love to do, I need to get back to producing images for myself. Whether or not they are ever seen by anyone else, it is a personal process that I need to do for me. Sometimes to express myself, and sometimes just to get it out of my system. I tend to get very caught up in “working” and often forget that my “work” can only get better as a result of me shooting just for shooting’s sake.

So Thanks to Annie for that little refresher course! And I’ll be sharing what I’ll be doing about this in upcoming posts.