“I”nspiration and jigsaw puzzles

Early morning sun peaking through a wooded area in Terre Haute, near Deming Park. © 2012 by Diane Weidenbenner

Inspiration is one of those things that you simply can’t define, explain or control. It’s intangible. Yet, when you have inspiration, whether you are a writer, painter or other type of artist, it’s the most wonderful experience in the world.

That’s what photography is like for me. When I take my camera along, I have no set expectations of what I might see or photograph.

It depends on available light, the time of year, whether I have a telephoto or regular lens on the camera, and whether I’m paying attention to my surroundings. When all these conditions are optimal, I may get a photo that I really love, that’s one in a million (for me as a amateur) and that has character. It can be a photo of wildlife, of an Amish buggy driving by or a landscape photo with just the right amount of humidity and rays of light shining through the trees, as shown above.

Take this Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Some days it’s easy to think of a topic to write about. I quickly find photos available or I can go back into my archives to find one or several that are appropriate.

Other days, I write a blog because I’ve committed to writing a blog that pertains to each letter of the alphabet, per day, except Sundays, through the month of April and I want to succeed. Sometimes it isn’t until I’m smack dab in the middle of a blog that I find that one random thought connects neatly with another, and then another.

It’s like working on a jigsaw puzzle and finding two pieces that fit perfectly together. After several pieces come together, I get a more complete picture of what the final outcome will be. Inspiration is a lot like working on a puzzle for which I don’t have a box lid or sample photo from which to build the image. As I write, the puzzle is formed by fitting more and more pieces together until it’s complete.