Daily Routine Interrupted: Inspiration Returns

Wake up (or rather be slapped awake by your two-year-old wailing for milk), start the day, email, jump on Twitter and Facebook, shoot, do post production, do pre-production, start the bedtime routine, work, sleep a few hours, repeat.

Repeat.

What a fantastic recipe for burnout. I’m sure this is what most of our lives look like, maybe with some adjustments in the details, but you know, pretty much all the same.

But every once in awhile, something happens to jog you out of the routine and make you sit up and do something different. I had one of those a couple of days ago, and it was amazing!

I had a spontaneous email correspondence with a friend that started when I commented on how great I thought his dance company newsletter was. This newsletter was so good, I actually stopped my day to read the whole thing! Yes, the whole newsletter. I was talking with him about how great a marketing tool it was and he mentioned something to me that was like a hat pin being stuck straight into my ever enlarging popo (behind, bottom, buttocks… for those of you that are not ballet dancers). He said he thought that I had revolutionized dance photography and he had hoped that people would continue to take notice.

WHAT??? SERIOUSLY? ME?!?!

“Really,” he said. “You.”

What a compliment. Now while the Canadian-ness that never seems to leave me has me unable to receive the comment in the light that it was intended (or is that the ex-dancer in me?), it did cause me to shake my head and step out of my daily routine enough to start focusing on the type of work that I really really want to do, even if it’s just for my personal pleasure.

So, here’s what I’ve taken a few slices out of my past few days to finish: the Escher Projectthat I started with the fantastic Milan and Nana Misko and my assistant Sasha (who is designing the backgrounds for us). Now that I have this first sample under my belt, I’m looking to expand the project into a really fantasy land world of pieces, each one in a different environment and perhaps including movement studies…

Calendar, anyone?

Here’s to getting excited about our work again people!!

Roman, thanks for the kick in the butt! If you don’t know about Roman Baca and his company EXIT 12, check him out. He is continually kicking his own butt and putting forth his mission with tireless passion.