DEAR PHOTOGRAPHER | feature by Carla Monge

 

Dear past, present and future Carla,

I believe the message I want to give you now is relevant to all three of those people, for our journeys are fluid and we often lose ourselves along the way, only to dig deeper and reencounter a truer version of ourselves, over and over as we journey on.

The image above is from 2012, one of the first images you took with your DSLR that you were proud of. The first image that made you realize you could capture your vision of the magic in our everyday lives. The photograph was made in your Grandmother’s bathroom as your husband held your two-month-old, preparing him for his bath, just a regular evening in what was your regular routine back then. You were just starting out in this wonderful world of photography, and yet you had already been drawn to what you liked, that magical play of light and shadow – and baby bums of course, who doesn’t love those!? 😉 I know that at the time you weren’t able to fully recognize the things you were drawn to and the things you were not, but looking back on your most meaningful photographs now, I can see that the core ingredients were already there. As you were learning, I know you searched and searched, and tried a bit of everything along the way. Perhaps that had to happen in order for you to realize, later on, that your taste and your vision had in fact been there all along, and that uncovering them and refining them is not a final destination but a lifetime’s creative journey.

We often over complicate things and search outside ourselves to find our style and our voice, but it is already within us, it has always been within us, and that is where you must remember to keeping digging for it, nurturing and refining it. As always, no path is ever a straight line, so next time you find yourself on an unfulfilling path, questioning your work and your meaning, just remember to slowly make your way back home through the inside, not through the outside.

Love,

Carla x

ABOUT THE ARTIST : 

Carla is a newborn and family lifestyle and fine art photographer, living in London with her husband and her muses, her two children. A former engineer who worked in finance for many years, photography has always been her creative outlet, now turned into her profession. Her passion first and foremost is that her kids may be able to see through her photographs, how she saw them whilst they were growing up.

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