Raw From The Road, July 12, 2016

Following Footsteps

I recently did a search for famous women photographers and found a list of ten famous women.

Did you know that out of the ten, five were born in the 1800’s and four were born in the 20^th century?

One was born in 1799?

Obviously, there have been a lot of great women photographers that were born in between and since these dates: Cindy Sherman, Judy Dater, Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin and so many more. I love that there were women, such a long time ago, creating photographs and documenting the world, long before me.

I’ve studied their images and envied the era in which they documented their environments. Helen Levitt, who dropped out of high school and taught herself photography, documented the streets of New York from the 1930’s into the 1960’s. She also made documentary films and taught art classes.

For a woman artist, during that time, she was incredibly successful and had to believe in herself so much that could create such a path for herself.

Helen Levitt is an inspiration and when I think of how difficult this road sometimes seems, I think of her and the beautiful work she created and know that it was not only her talent and skill that catapulted her forward, but it was also her commitment.

I wanted to skip this week’s email because I just wasn’t feeling it and my coach reminded me by asking, “remember how good it is for your own soul and progress and pride and satisfaction to not break the chain?

I’m sure Helen Levitt never stopped what she was doing because she just didn’t feel “it”, whatever “it” was.

No, she kept going and accomplished beautiful things in her life.

And so shall I…

Thanks Martin.

Be Brave, Be Strong, Be YOU! (Also, be gentle with yourself)

Robbie