I have a confession to make:  I am easily bored.  Well, not exactly bored.  I can’t actually remember a time that I was bored.  It’s more like I am always searching for new ways to do things.  Once I know how to do something well, I find myself wondering what else could be done.

In my first blog post I wrote about this as Stretching.  It’s so easy to get comfortable with what you know and what you do and what you think. That’s also known as a rut. 🙂 It takes a certain amount of courage to try new thoughts, new ways of being or doing but there can be rewards. Pablo Picasso is quoted as saying, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

I’ve been intrigued with long exposure photography for some time but hadn’t  had (or made) the opportunity to play with it.  I was at a cottage on Lake Ontario for the weekend which was the perfect place and time to try this.

Photographers often speak of capturing a moment in time.  But what happens when you capture many moments all together?  In one image?  That’s what long exposures do.  Normally, when the shutter clicks it is open for a fairly short period of time, like 1/60th of a second.  Actually 1/60th is considered on the slow end of shutter speeds.  Shutter speeds on my camera go up to 1/8000th of a second.  That’s really capturing a moment!  So if you slow the shutter way down and keep it open for 1 whole second, or even 30 or 60 seconds what would happen?

Partly that would depend on whether the camera was still or moving.  In this first attempt I put the camera on a tripod to keep it very still and pointed it toward the horizon looking directly out over Lake Ontario.  The shutter was open for 60 seconds.  The movements of the clouds and the water are recorded and blend together and smooth everything out.  Pretty cool!  I have some ideas of other moving objects that I would like to try this with but was happy with my first attempt.

What new thing have you tried lately?  How have you pulled yourself away from the comfortable?   What could you do that you cannot do?

PS…This blog in general and this post in particular are also evidence of “doing what I cannot do”.  I’ve been taking part in a great online course lately, Flying Lessons: Tips and Trick to make your Creative Business Soar .  I’ve become connected with creative women all over the world. A small group from the class decided to start a blog circle.  At the time I didn’t even have a blog, let alone know what a blog circle is.  But, I thought, why not?  In the doing is the learning.

My understanding is that our 13 blogs, one by one link to each other and we will all be discussing our thoughts on courage.  So check out what  Janice Perdue Smith, a mixed media artist from Texas, has to say today about courage and see where that leads you.  I’ll be figuring it out as I go along, also. 🙂