I have lots of friends who do photography.  And, like everyone else, we sometimes sit down after a long day and talk about stuff.  I often ask my friends what inspires them.

Mostly they will point to the work of another photographer.  Sometimes they will point to a work of art.

The appeal of another’s work or someone’s art is individual.  What appeals to me may not appeal to you.  I wish understood why that is.  Perhaps it has to do with our own cultural bias.  Perhaps it has to do with our education.  Perhaps it has to do with our life experience.  Some things simply appeal to our eyes and our intellect while other things don’t.

And too, I think it has to do with our age.  What appealed to me when I was young does not appeal to me now. Our perspective changes over time.  And, part of that I think has to do with what others like at the time.  We go through periods of time when the visual arts shift from one genre to another.

But, I also think that some art work is timeless, that it will always have an appeal.

Some years ago I visited the Smithsonian Institute while I was in Washington, D.C., attending a World Futures Conference.  I had been invited there to participate on a panel to talk about the future.  Seems I had written some stuff about that, and the conference thought that maybe I could contribute something.  It was a great experience.

While at the Smithsonian, I had the opportunity to see a wonderful exhibit of the works of oriental artists.  One very large screen, consisting of four panels, grabbed my attention.  And ever since, that work has served as an inspiration to me.

Here is a photograph of the screen.

Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795) Geese Over a Beach

It is difficult to describe how the screen looks, it is very large.  Yet it is so very powerful in its simplicity.  And true to the oriental mind, the subjects are moving from right to left, not left to right as in the western world.

Perhaps the reason this art work is so appealing to me has to do with the critical moment that the artist found.  Perhaps it is the mood of the work.  Perhaps it is the wide expanse of room that the two geese are moving into and the freedom that it implies.  I really can’t say what it is so powerful to me.  Yet, I know that someday I want to capture something like this in a photograph.

I am sure that others would simply look at this work and find nothing appealing in it.  And that is OK.  We each find inspiration in different ways.  It is another reason why I so much like the photographic art form, we are all free to pursue those things we like.

If there is a lesson here, perhaps it has to do with finding our own inspiration.  Surely all of us find it in different ways.