Guess what's coming back into season!!!

Here in Sandy, turn your clocks back 20 years to find it just a little outside Portland,we have still been getting snow for the last few weeks as we are at 1,000 feet. We had a beautiful weekend a few weeks ago, but I don't remember when that was. Anyway, here we are past the middle of February April and it doesn't seem like Summer will ever arrive.
(Keep in mind that during the summer, my whining post will be about how it's too hot - you know the drill.)
So, I needed a few things and decided to drive through the 40 degree rain to get to my big box favorite place to wander around on a fine cold, rainy spring day. It's a good way to get in trouble see what's new. I walked back into one of the refrigerator caves to pick up my 50 lb bag of salad, and smelled something yummy. It took me a minute to think about the clear box of red orbs sitting in front of me. Then I was struck by a need for strawberries. I am a somewhat conscientious shopper, and like to buy products that are at least relatively local. While I cringed, expecting to see "Chile" as the country of origin, I found that the strawberries were grown and processed in Califor nie aye. Hooray! I can buy the strawberries because like 90% of Portland area citizens these are from California. American strawberries!! Woo Hoo!
What else could I do beside eat some of these "noms"... and take some pictures. Instead of editing work photos, or maybe marketing my services, or cleaning, or hanging out with my dog, I took a gigabyte few photos. I have peppered them throughout this post. I hope you enjoy the shots as much as I enjoyed taking them. There WERE strawberries injured during the production of these photos.

Photography as a career?

Andy Warhol once said that "Art is a boy's name".


Brilliant.


So now, I ask the question with a qualifier -"what is art, and who decides that something is art?"


I spend hours scouring the net for inspiration. It's amazing what you can find out there and is generally uninspiring. I thought one day about American art and the major museums. MoMA came to mind. Some items are wonderful and others make me reconsider calling myself an artist. I visited the Seattle Art Museum for their Roman exhibit and scratched my head at some of the "art" they had on display. Their normal displays were awesome, and the ancient Roman stuff was worth the money, but some of the displays in the main museum wonder why ANYONE would be interested. I guess everyone has their opinions, but really????


Like most photographers, I catch myself saying "Anyone could shoot that. It's only art because Richard Avedon shot it." To be fair, I sometimes see shots that are so simple that anyone could have shot them, but the photographer did something to put their spin on it, making the simple shot absolutely beautiful. This is where I find that I am truly inspired by other photographers.
If you are looking for inspiration in life, look around you and see what you had overlooked before. Why do you get out of bed? I get out of bed because I can learn something new every day by looking around. Mind you, I have those days where I ask my self what the hell I was thinking quitting the 9 to 5 gig that I had to pursue professional photography as my bread and butter!?!?!
That's when my lovely significant other bonks me on the head and reminds me that my boss rocks and I get to deal with new people and new challenges all the time. No other job has made me so mad in the past, but none has been so rewarding either. My boss can be a jerk, but he is usually pretty laid back and has great taste in music and beer. What more can you ask?