Photography: Unleash Your Inner Child

I cannot speak for other arts, as I only practice photography, and I will offer the diclaimer that this is only my personal opinion.

In order to be a photographer, you have to be in touch with you inner child. Now, I don't mean you need to go lay on the couch with a bag of candy and watch Saturday morning cartoons. Rather, you must look at the world through the eyes of a child and regard everything with awe and wonder as though you are seeing everything for the first time. Children are well-known for seeing things that adults often overlook. And that is why you must be able to see the world as a child in order to find beauty that is so often overlooked by those who claim maturity. For what use is maturity if you ignore the beauty that surrounds you? And at teh same time, what use is seeing this beauty if you are unable to recognize it for what it is? Thus a balance of both innocent naiveity and maturity is essential for photography. With this balance, you can see the beauty in small things, and yet be able to recognize why you find them beautiful. For example, Say there was a tree that you passed by every morning, but had never really looked at. If you were to pause one day and really look at the tree. Observe how the light filters in patterns through the leaves and dances on the sidewalk in constantly shifting arrays as the branches sway gently in the wind, or how the rain, as it cascades down from one leaf to another glitters in the slightest sliver of sunlight. Or how the snow seems to fit around the tree as a collection of pure, white blankets, covering its winter nakedness. You never would have noticed before, simply walking by, always busy of course, as any "mature" person is. Always in a hurry, always on your way somewhere. But why? The most beautiful things are found when you walk slowly and aren't going anywhere in particular. A true photographer in someone in the shadows. Someone who goes at a slower pace than the rest of the world in order to capture the little things, the most beautiful things. They are shunned by the modern world, because they don't want to rush, they don't have to always be going somewhere. For they have learned that sometimes, you need to time to simply exist. Nothing else, just be for a while.