The Art of Suffering.

The art of suffering, or rather, suffering for your art. What exactly do I mean by that, you ask? This may sound familiar because I have talked about this before, that in order to create something beautiful, we must suffer for it, work extra hard for it, put our heart and soul into it, give ourselves over to it.  This image that you see here is one that I had planned for over a year. It is in New Brunswick, Canada, and I was well aware that I needed to secure a passport to cross the border over to Campobello Island and into New Brunswick. I had planned my annual vacation up to Bar Harbor, a six hour drive for me, and not something that I look forward to doing. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Bar Harbor, but that six hour drive is just so daunting, there is no easy route to get there. And so then from Bar Harbor, I would need to drive another four hours past Lubec, and into New Brunswick in order to photograph East Quoddy Lighthouse at sunrise. Now, doing the math, in order to be at East Quoddy for, say 4am, I knew that I needed to leave my hotel room at 12 midnight. I never did go to bed that night, and when I did finally get back to my hotel in Bar Harbor around 10am, I slept for several hours. I wasn’t just exhausted, I was completely worn out. I had never been to East Quoddy Lighthouse before, so exploring in the dark, even though I had a nice flashlight with me, was extremely challenging. I kind of knew where I needed to be, but finding it in the dark along rocky terrain was something that I wish I was better prepared for. But that’s the point, in order to find ourselves, to create a moment in time that captures the essence of the elegance of the area, the beauty of the particular time of year, it takes a concentrated effort, almost dare I say, to the brink of giving up. But desire wins out, you want it so badly that you’re are willing to do almost anything to make it happen, including putting ourselves through adversity that can only best be described as suffering. And in that suffering, in that exhaustive work, somehow magic happens. It is almost as if the Heavens open up and pour its love over us in beauty and grace. Knowing this in the back of my mind doesn’t make me want to try my hand at anymore super difficult shoots, but it does make me realize that if we do in fact put ourselves out there, I mean, truly put ourselves completely out there and lay everything on the line, that magic truly does and can happen.