mud pies to medicine: Perfectionism and Procrastination

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Perfectionism and Procrastination

My mother was a scrapbooking consultant for a while and she used to tell people that perfectionists were the worst procrastinators. In order to get things done we have to face the fact that they are not going to be perfect. A photographer I worked for told me she could no longer see the beauty in her photos, just what she could have done better. Getting the perfect shot has often been a hindrance to posting many of my photos and is the reason I prefer portraits. Everyone has taken a picture of the Eiffel Tower but a certain look in someone's eye can only be captured once. I love portraits and only see flaws in my landscapes. But, this project is also about getting over that and posting pictures that have sat in a folder for only me to see. Other posts have shown "beauty in the breakdown". I love pictures of rust and picture #3 continues this theme. This comes from a folder full of pictures from the island of Dominica (not to be confused with the Dominican Republic) that have been left untouched because of perfectionism. I see many flaws in them and I knew a lot less than the little I know now about photography. I'm unhappy with them but I am challenging myself to post a few. So here it is, number three...

I challenge other amateurs/enthusiasts etc to stop looking for flaws in your photos: others probably won't see them, so share your art!

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The inspiration you ask?

I miss making mud pies. There is this huge rock in my front yard. To call it a rock really does it a dishonor. It is a boulder, brought home by my father on a huge dump truck after he blasted it out of a work site. My mom one day told me that even though it is nearly 2.5 feet high, 6 feet long, and 2.5 feet wide, that it was, in fact, only half-showing. The scientist inside of me was disbelieving and set out to get some proof. Clad in a dress, bow in my hair, and my best accessory, a shovel, I trudged outside ready to prove my mother wrong. That is when the digging began. I dug, and dug, and dug, and nearly all 3.5 feet of Danielle fit in that hole when I had reached the bottom of the rock. That became my digging spot, my mud pie kitchen. Each day it was dug, and each evening it was filled back in. Sometimes the holes were small, sometimes they were enormous, and most days the hole was turned into my mud mixing bowl with that rock as my counter. The novelty never wore off. The ebb and flow of my childhood was, in many ways, measured by the ever-changing depth of that hole in the front yard, the hole that never really disappeared even each day after it was filled in. Even though the grass has grown back in that spot, there still remains, an indentation, the scars of a childhood well lived and the disbelieving scientists I have always been.

So, you ask me why I want to be a doctor? I do not want to be a doctor. I want to open a mud pie bakery with the cash register on that rock in my front yard. But, somehow, I doubt I would stay in business long, for the world seems to have lost its taste for mud pies. I guess being a doctor will have to do.