Make Your Own Story
Photos of ice and mist tell my own story on Huangshan, China.
As a unique, creative being you are a story maker with the power to craft your own life’s journey and, ultimately, make your own story. Here’s how!
Photographers are creative beings and artists are curious and questioning souls. Many of us dream of the hero’s quest and believe that our art can drawn attention to important issues and, thereby, benefit humanity.
Some seek to resolve the big questions in life. But the purpose of art is not so much to provide definitive answers. It is to ask questions.
This article is illustrated with photos from my journey across Huangshan (i.e., Yellow Mountain) in China during the middle of winter.
The above photo shows the snow covered mountainside and the path, clinging to the side of the mountain, I followed as I journey up into the mist.
The Artist and Negativity
Despite our lofty ambitions, many creative souls struggle with a series of basic questions that can stifle the production of their art and, as a consequence, impede their own creative journey.
Examples include the following:
What am I going to focus on?
What’s my style?
Is there an audience for my work?
Am I any good?
Turning Adversity Into Opportunity
These are all important questions that need to be worked through, again and again, during one’s career.
But such questions are also an opportunity to examine our commitment and to improve the quality of our art.
Most important of all such questions provide us with the opportunity to better define our life’s purpose, the reason why we do what we do.
The fact that so many good folk become a prisoner to such questions is sad and probably explained by a lack of psychological maturity.
After all, defeat is easy. But a well-lived and happy life involves courage, risk, continued commitment and a willingness to learn from failure.
Making Something Out Of Nothing
Within every subject or scene there is the potential of a great photograph. Our craft is to use subject matter, composition, light, interaction and timing to do so.
Whether you’re a fine-art, commercial or enthusiast photographer you have the opportunity to make of that subject or scene a photograph that will stand for something greater than the sum of it’s parts.
Just about anyone can make a really good picture of fantastic subject matter under ideal conditions. But a great photographer can make a really good image, time and time again, of what many might consider banal or uninteresting subject matter.
You Have A Purpose
Photographers are creative beings. There’s value in the art you create. As well as inspiring and educating your audience your photography can bring purpose and meaning into you life.
This act of creation is, perhaps, the greatest gift the artist has and the most important offering we can make to our audience and to the universe.
Surely that’s reason enough to continue to feed and nurture your creativity.
The way forward on this icy path on Huangshan was challenging.
The Balance Of Opposites
We all need a sense of certainty in our lives yet, paradoxically, there’s also a part of us that can benefit from uncertainty.
As a self-motivated and self-funded travel photographer I need to know that most of my plane and rail tickets have been booked and paid for in advance, prior to leaving home.
Depending upon how long I’m on the road the same is true for at least some of my accommodation. But food and many of the local attractions I visit I often leave up to chance.
On my two trips to Tibet (1988 and 2000) I made sure I visited the Potala Palace and the Jokhang Temple.
However, when I travelled to Salzburg I was happy just to wander around and, where it seemed right to do so, ask locals and other tourists what they think would be interesting sites to photograph.
There’s a lot to be said for uncertainty, for reaching a fork in the road and letting your intuition guide you, one way or another. It’s what makes life interesting.
Clearly folks signing up for a guided tour are looking for certainty and expecting that they’ll get to experience everything listed in the itinerary.
I co-ran an amazing photography tour to Antarctica and, believe me, that’s the only way most of us should journey to that great island continent.
But Bali is entirely another world. I finally got there as a last minute add on following a hectic trip to India and China.
Bali is a beautiful country that’s well set up for tourists. While you can book one or more tours before you leave home, Bali is also the kind of destination where, if you’re sensible about how you approach your holiday, you’ll be able to arrange lots of fantastic things to do.
What’s more you’ll usually be able to do so by making the necessary bookings just a day in advance. That’s what I did. It's not ideal and my next trip to Bali will follow after some more extensive research.
Nonetheless, I had a fantastic time and packed a lot into my visit simply by booking a car and driver, through by hotel, based around suggestions for great places to photograph.
Be Prepared And Embrace Ambiguity
Beauty is transitory. It’s of the moment and, as a photographer, you just need to be ready to react to chance encounters and to beauty wherever you find it.
I made the photo in this post on Huangshan, a famous mountain in Eastern China. Yellow Mountain, as it’s known in English, is a place of sublime beauty. But fame can come at a price. In China that means people. There are literally millions of tourists, mostly locals, who visit Yellow Mountain every year.
I wanted to ensure I was able to experience the serenity of this spectacular mountain and to be able to photograph, as much as possible, without restrictions.
That’s why I chose to visit Huangshan in the middle of winter.
Choose Your Own Story
Huangshan is actually a series of mountain peaks that you traverse along well made stone pathways. The hiking was fantastic and I really enjoyed photographing mountain views, trees and snow during my time on Yellow Mountain.
However, by the second day, and after climbing up and down many, many steps I decided that I was going to assemble my photos into a series based around the notion of the journey.
While the wintery terrain and the steep mountainsides kept me well and truly on the stone pathways I needed to follow, it became clear to me that those same pathways were central to the journey I was experiencing.
As a consequence the journey or, if you prefer, pathways became central to the story I chose to create. In fact they became metaphors for the journey we all follow through life.
The fact that it was winter was great because, while including people can be a great way to explore scale in a photo, I felt the absence of the human element showed the brooding, natural power of Huangshan.
I feel the absence of people in these photos also encourages the viewer to imagine themselves following those same (physical and metaphorical) pathways I followed on my journey across Yellow Mountain.
Just like Huangshan your current circumstances don’t always represent the path ahead.
A Barrier Or The Road Ahead - You Choose
In the greater scheme of things we frequently find ourselves at a metaphorical fork in the road. The problem is, rather than seeing different ways forward, we see a moat and/or a castle wall impeding our progress.
Travel can be tough. In the past there were times when I became frustrated or angry when travelling. I was particularly susceptible at times of significant fatigue, particularly when I know I was being lied to.
But I’ve learned to separate myself from the event and, thereby, have more control over how I respond.
It’s all about making your own reality. You don’t always get to control what happens to you in life, but you do get to control what you make out of what happens to you.
A Way Out of Anxiety, Anger and Stress
Let me share with you a technique I learned a few years ago, which I don’t always remember to follow. But it works!
Basically you remove yourself from the moment by picturing yourself above your body so that you can look down on the scene unfolding below.
In doing so you have separated yourself from your physical body and from the emotions you would otherwise be feeling.
The event unfolding is quickly diminished in importance (if not, pull back a little further so that everyone looks smaller and less significant) and it’s then so much easier not to become a slave to your emotions.
Their power over you is diminished, as to are the debilitating affects they might otherwise have on your well-being and the way you relate to others.
What this technique does is allows you to determine what meaning you choose to attach to a particular moment or event.
After all the castle wall or moat was a metaphor, not an actual physical structure.
Embrace Uncertainty
Next time you come to a fork in the road, where a choice must be made, you might choose to conceive of it as a path to freedom, to adventure and to new beginnings.
Just remember to trust your intuition. That’s, quite literally, the right brain talking to you.
On Huangshan the road ahead seemed full of possibilities.
We Create Our Own Reality
I believe we make our own reality. Not, necessarily, what happens to us. I’m talking about what we decide to make out of whatever happens to us. And I think that’s a really critical point of difference that’s worth thinking on.
I’d like your own story to be joyful and happy. I hope you’re able to create a life for yourself that brings joy and happiness to those around you and impact upon the world in a positive way.
I feel the best way we can all achieve this goal is as follows:
Heal Yourself, Heal the World.
