Annie Leibovitz, One of Many Inspirations

Last year I was wandering through a local video store here in Amsterdam, and came across Annie Leibovitz: Life Through A Lens. I picked it up and bought it.

From my first viewing I was moved by this life. Moved by the story behind Annie's rise from young art student to the photographic icon she is today. It all seemed to fall in place for her, job by job, experience by experience, photo by photo. She had a great sense of looking through a lens and seeing what others did not. She captures a moment with the best

treatments and her craft in a way that the average person connects to without understanding why.  It was her application of understanding concepts that manifested itself through her first internationally recognized photos of the Rolling Stones for the magazine that defines generation, Rolling Stone Magazine. This particular one of John and Yoko was taken just a few hours before his death, and came to be "the pieta of our generation" according to Jann Wenner, Co-Founder and Publisher of  Rolling Stone Magazine.

When I am stuck and searching for my own

creative inspiration, I flip through my favorite books, listen to great music, look at photos, or watch this movie, and think of a focus. Lately it has been Annie's movie that has helped me the most to find what is it that I want to capture. Not only visually, but in feeling, movement and sentiment. My black and white drawings are therapeutic in the process of creating them, but do not have the connective power for others looking on. Have been looking at art and conducting a self-experiment for most of my adult life. Trying to compose a list of the various qualities that make art great (in my opinion) and has moved me toward wanting to create something of my own that represents who I am and what moves me, and how I feel.