Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius.
It is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

As I started to look into this mirror, cracked and imperfect, I started letting go of my need for perfection… from myself and from others. It was (and sometimes still is) a long hard road because it’s true, old habits are stubborn.

However, little by little my reactions to the imperfections of life (and myself) were not as dramatic or intense. (I will insert here, that this word “intense” has been a description attached to my personality for many years).

Now, I was feeling that intensity of life diminish… the intensity and need to control all the imperfections started disintegrating.

In time, and really recently, I noticed how  being on this path has affected the work in my photography.

I don’t ‘go’ for the perfect photograph or composition all the time.  And I do have Aline Smithson to thank for that. Aline taught me how to look at my own work with a different eye.

To actually select the photographs that were more obscure looking and less ‘perfect.’  And now it’s more fun and interesting curating my own work.

For example, I love the imperfect composition of this image from the “Cracked” series and soon to be published book. The lines are crooked on the perimeter of the photograph. I would have never selected it a few years ago.

As I learn how to delight in things somewhat askew in my photographs, that concept is also translating into my life.

Actually, it is the other way around.

In my research for this post, I found many articles about the imperfections of the classics, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Manet and Michelangelo to name a few.

Of course, there is analysis for some of these that say these imperfections were deliberate, but I’m not convinced the author had any hard evidence of that.

Regardless, imperfections are part of life, even with these well-known classic painters, so I think it’s safe to say we are all in good company.

Here’s to our imperfections and the new and interesting ways we get to look at things and ourselves and each other.

Imperfectly yours,

Robbie