Ah, Changes!

Thursday, January 24, 2019

Yesterday, I caught myself trying to express ideas that seemed too abstract. Maybe readers would have been okay with them, but I paused to rethink the ingredients of a good blog. Like all writing, blogs need words that flow smoothly and lead to clear ideas. After thinking this over, I’ve decided to change my usual composing process. Previously, after selecting interesting photographs, I’ve tried writing to them. Today, I’ll write first and then look for a complementary photo.

My difficulties in first chosing photographs and then writing to them refreshes how greatly images stimulate the brain by suggesting multiple meanings. Even my own captures, clumsy and off-the-cuff, suggest a multitude of ideas. Photography’s immense capacity to produce images with streams of possible meanings has lifted fine camerawork to serious art.

I don’t organize ideas before starting to write but simply put fingers to keys and hope for the best. Yesterday, my resistance to planning landed me, with heartburn and mired to my knees, in abstractions. Maybe my blogs will improve by first writing and then integrating some kind of picture. Maybe they’ll also need outlines.

For today’s blog, what photo might I choose? One from my millions of horses? Can I make a case for a meaningful relationship between writing and riding? Can we make-do and hang-in today? Oh my, now, what’s the right picture?

Dear Readers, have a wonderful day and rethink your photographs, Diana.