Making art isn’t always some spiritually awaking experience with sparks flying out of your fingers and your eyes glowing with crazed inspiration. Sometimes you wake up and nothing comes. Some days you don’t feel like it. So you look for ideas.

The following set was an impromptu experiment where I intentionally took photos out of focus (this is something I’ve seen done by other photographers). It was a challenge. How do you look through the viewfinder and not focus? But I figured out that that was kind of the point. I had to relax my gaze and began to notice the relationship between shapes and lights. If anything, this was an exercise in “seeing” differently when looking through the camera. Have you ever tried this? What experiments have you done?

Since 2010 I’ve been participating in a fundraiser for Photographic Center Northwest called Long Shot. It’s an annual event where you take photos within a 24-hour period, submit five photos you like, and the school chooses one photo to exhibit and auction at a community event. All proceeds benefit the school. I think it’s great to have a school that can provide classes and resources for people who are experimenting with and passionate about photography. This year, I did a series of photos taken at my kitchen table. I’m not sure which one I want to leave out, but feel good about what I came up with.