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“So if the work you are creating demands completion before you can find fulfillment, it’s doubtful the creation will be finished, and perhaps more doubtful it will be any good when it’s done. You’ll labor through it, pushing it up a hill like a broken cart. But if you can love the actual work, not the finished product, you’re on to something. If you have a rhythm, if you get up every morning and work for a few hours, and you like the getting up and the work, and you don’t think about how great it will be when it’s done, but rather how great it is every day that you get to get up and do the work, your creation will be tremendous. Don’t think about the finished product. Stop rewarding yourself with something that doesn’t exist, and may never exist. Instead, think about how delightful it is you get to do this, you get to make this, and how delightful it will be to get up and do it again tomorrow.”-Donald Miller via his Blog

When I came across these words, man… was I hit straight in the face.  Especially when he says ‘You’ll labor through it, pushing it up a hill like a broken cart’. WOW, it feels just like that sometimes.  With the branding, self marketing, strategizing, blogging, editing and all the other details that go into launching your own photography business in new directions, it is easy to put that proverbial broken cart before the horse.  I  realized recently that Kevin and I needed to fall back in love with what drew us to the craft to begin with.  The connection.  That is what it is all about.  The connection that you have with the subject that you are shooting.  The connection the subject has with you.  When you do what you love everything is a successful byproduct of that love.  That is when your work transforms you as an artist.  It is no longer something you do, it is who you are.

I have to remind myself of who I am every now and then.  It sounds silly to a lot of people but it is so easy to lose sight of who we are and what drives us.

Cheers, D