It was so lovely to be immersed with other abstract photographers at Port Macquarie the other week. I find it so motivating to be in a creative environment with others. With a group of experienced photographers we seemed to lighten the classroom load and have a touch more time for creating. I think it’s something we don’t reward ourselves often enough with.

I had a really lovely time playing with an Agave beside a path to the beach. It turned into a landscape with a swoosh. One has to embrace the happy accident to enjoy this type of art making. It’s often ones that we first think of as mistakes or failures that end up rising above the rest to take pride in the final pick.

If we are only creating perfect pictures with each press of the shutter we really aren’t experimenting enough to flex our creative muscles. The quest of perfection is the enemy and embracing the accident, the failure and the experiment, is the key to creative success.

During the week I often retreated to my favourite subjects of trees. Only to add more inks to my Tushe Tree series. It seems it is growing to such an extent that a book is inevitable. Actually we are getting so close to releasing two books. Shhhh, we promise to start teasing you soon with their contents.

Hasn’t Clair been doing a fabulous job keeping us entertained with posts from our students work. Students is the wrong word really. Members of our creative community is a better way to describe us. I am amazed and inspired by their art. I do hope you have been too.

Photographs and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2022