The Muse of Inspiration Can be Found in a Book

Even though it is 2023 and I am already thinking about next year, and hoping that some sense can be made of the turmoil we seem to experience on a daily basis, I am looking back on certain things that formed the basis of my photographic lineage. I am in serious thought about returning to that genre but in a much different format. (more later!)

Inspiration can come from many sources, a thought, a vision, the way the wind plays with a branch, a full moon coming from behind a cloud. You know them. You have seen them and more. I hope you have captured those images in some creative manner.

My Muse is constantly twisting my head to look in one direction or the other!

If you are a figure photographer, as I have been, sometimes inspiration can seem to disappear. What do you do then? How can you rekindle the flames of creativity? One of the ways I do it is to go to my library and pick out a book that just might serve as a hard-back Muse. Just looking at covers of books can serve as inspiration.

It’s been a few years since I first turned the pages of a book that came to me in the form of a press release. That formidable volume still serves to inspire me. That book is NAKED: The Nude in America (pictured), by Bram Dijkstra (Rizzoli USA, 2010), and I have to tell you, even though I have turned its…