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About Me:

I don't know who or where I heard this from but it stuck with me like white on rice:

I believe it was a famous artist or photographer and it goes like this:

"Your first 10,000 shots are all garbage." And something to the effect that, after that, one will have gained ~some~ perspective and education based on their level of creativity and genuine love and interest of the craft.

I've reached that number and I still feel as though I've a million miles to go.

I feel as though I've nothing but growth and enlightenment and experience to gain.

My LOVE for this craft has grown exponentially and I cannot...thank...those of you...who have supported me this past year.

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Quite frankly, as I'm rehabilitating, E V E R so SLOWLY, from a brain injury, photography has been the catalyst to my healing journey. I cannot explain it as it just...~happened~

You can also find me on RedBubble.com, at the above mentioned url address, where I sell my work, if you're interested. ~smile~

Blessings Always....Valerie

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I have NO formal training in photography.

I've worn out three cameras already from taking 20-30 shots of one subject every time I shoot, lol.

I realize that there are perspectives of a subject, and by examining ~each~ possible perspective that I can find, I learn something with EVERY shot I take...whether it's "garbage" or not...I still learn something. That ~something~ is very difficult to put into words to those who don't have a genuine commitment to this work. For those of you who DO have this "addiction", so to speak, I know you understand this.

I have evolved, as of 2009, to doing a lot of impressionistic work or perhaps it's my brain trying to express, therapeutically, my own version of what I need to express in an image. I've been accused on occasion of overworking an image but...it's something my brain needs and I cannot explain this. I can only say, again, that photography is a massively huge healing therapeutic "hobby" that has taken over most any other interests. My way of expressing an image and glorifying it may seem odd or disjointed but I know this is part of a process that may take yrs to heal my brain. It is an outlet of immense relief for both, my mind, and brain .

When I got this brain injury in 2002 I was diagnosed terminal given one year to live. Rather than support me, my husband found greener pastures, as I was ~the~ primary bread winner and suddenly that $$ was going to be lost. Sad b/c I've come to realize just how powerful Karma can be if one just lets go....

The important thing is, I'm trying to coming back, maybe one day even stronger than pre-disease but my heart ~ALWAYS~ remains tender.

For the next 4 years after my diagnosis, I was 90% bedridden.

Depression was deeply blended into the entire mix of things and only enhanced a life in a bed.

In May of 2007, I got out of bed. Yoga, photography, meditation, the studies of the philosophy of Buddhism, and a powerful will to survive and fight this dis-ease are my new life tools now.

My life is consumed now with fighting to live...

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Looking back on the life I've lead, one of the things I realized is that I was ALWAYS taking pictures. My (ex) husband and I used to camp and travel.

I was ~irritatingly~ consumed with taking pictures and the oddest... thing about that, in retrospect, is that it ~never~, in my mind, ~ever~...occurred to me that I wanted to "be a photographer". I still shake my head in amused wonder about that.

It ~never~ occurred to me. Yet, I was always taking pictures...

Perhaps there are two (if not more) types...of "photographers" , or better said, just ~people who take pictures~ : One being the person who just loves to take pictures but doesn't have the foggiest idea of anything beyond that idea (as I was for years) or perhaps, better said, never entertained the idea of having a ~serious eye~ on the matter...being all consumed with seeing life through the "eyes of a photographer".

The others are those of us who ~strive~ to express ourselves and express/reflect the WORLD around us in ever growing and widening circles from our...center...to beyond...infinity.....

I know that for me...this is how I came to be a photographer.

The mindset I had ~then~ and the mindset I have ~now~ are two completely and vastly polarized "places".

I don't think I'm unique in much of this that I've written, yet we are all so incredibly unique in how we present and reflect the world around us to...those ~in~ the world around us, and even to ourselves.

I've had ideas come to me in those meditative states of mind that I don't believe I could have come up with....without....meditation.

Much of these "epiphany's" revolve around new concepts in photography. I've made a point to write these concepts down for that...right time and moment in my journey with this craft, and I'm profoundly affected by these ideas and so look forward to the time and place where I am ~there~ and in that place to begin applying these concepts of self expression & reflection of this world.

Tapping into ourselves ...into the creativeness we all posses, is an experience that none of us should ever...ignore or assume that we cannot attain these higher aspirations. If we think it, we can do it.

My brain wires and synapses and nerves are all groping for their proper and might I even say, ENHANCED alignment now. I didn't use my brain for years as this horrible disease ravaged me while I waited to die. And...I wanted to die.

Having lost everything; career, "friends" , spouse, status, HOME, and reduced....to the bare bones of existence....could be easily (and I have been chronically guilty of this thinking) seen as a sad and desolate state of poverty, not only materialistically but spiritually.

Yet....having all "things" lost to me and now resolved to living in a motor home even....(something I NEVER thought I would be able to deal with), somehow ~removes~ obstacles from a persons vision...if one gains the proper perspective.

We all have choices.....and for the longest time...I must admit to myself and to anyone else that I gave up on life and because I couldn't have the comfort of seeing a light at the end of my tunnel...I lost all hope.

It is not a stretch....at all...to say...that photography and yoga and meditation are the things that are keeping me alive and moreover, I ~know~ ...and I mean...I really ~know~ that if I continue following this path I might live, and in the fullest sense of the word.

I think that as artists, we are somehow, on some level, a voice, a spiritual guide, even, of sorts, for the world and for those of us who take this aspect of photography as such, I know that you understand my meaning. Again, there is no arrogance whatsoever intended in that statement.

I watched a biography on Albert Einstein once and one of the people who documented his life said: "His creative side....is what kept him alive and his ability to think outside the box is what made him a genius."

(Something very close to that effect).

I innately ~got that~ on a level I may not have earlier in my life before I got sick and lost so much.

Prior to this loss and this illness, I was a career person who moved in elegant circles of society and I was admired and even loved for my nature and talents.

I thought I had reached as high as I could go in life when this happened.

*****You will find that I often go "missing" for extended periods of time and comments are seemingly not getting answered....emails on here not getting replies....etc....*****

>>>>Please remember, ALWAYS, that those times are the times that this disease gets a tight grasp onto me and I am down with a swelling brain and/or meningitis and/or hospitalized, (rare as I'm deeply hospital phobic anymore).<<<<

To date, the only support I have is from you & RedBubble.com.

Aloneness and poverty can be a platform for infinite possibilities if one only allows it.

Namaste

Pleas Feel Free To Join my New Group For Brain Injury Survivors Who Are Photographers, Artists, or Lovers of...!

~A Poem I Wrote About Love~

June 21, 2006 - Jun. 22, 2006 at 12:54 AM

When I spend my quiet evening listening to the instruments of music that lightly feather my mind and softly blow the mist from my heart, I know love....

When I open my eyes for no reason from a deep sleep and see the sun rising, I know Love.

When I don't know whether to laugh or to cry and I see my friends look at me with a warm astonishment...I certainly...know Love.

When I feel silence caress me and soothe me and I feel God's grace upon me for no good reason...

I must know Love...

When I see a random act of kindness not intended to be seen, I know Love, no doubt...

When time whispers to me that, without it...everything would happen all at once and hence...chaos ensues...I feel....Love from God for the gift of Time.

When I ache to be held and fall asleep in the arms of a man I love...I realize that I must already...Know Love....to recognize the want of it, and the feeling of missing It.

When I hurt profoundly for the pain of another....

I know Love....

When I read words from a persons heart...not fancy and not poetic....just...the words from a heart...I once again, recognize Love...

When I cry....and only know that I can feel...again I know there is Love....

When someone puts me...before them-self...ah.. now there I know...Love...

Even when I ache to give it...again I must tenderly smile with the sorrow...for then I know that I've known...Love.

When I can let go of bitterness and forgive..I know Love.

When the sunlight plays upon the leaves of a tree and the breeze rustles them softly....if I can be still in that moment and hear the music of life...again, I know Love...

When I cry at the sight of a simple and beautiful thing...there it is...Love...

When I see a mother touch the face of her child....in that moment I see and know....Love...and when I see a father grow still and quiet for a moment of awe as he absorbs the undying adoration of his child...there it is, still...Love...

When my fingertips touch the skin of an apple and I close my eyes and smile...again I know Love...

When I look at the eyes of the elderly as they Remember... in the quiet moments...there...is Love...

When I watch the snowflakes drift in the sterile breath of the cold that carries them....there again is Love....

Even though I ache to give of the Love within my heart to the One who aches to have it....I again realize....there IS...Love...

Love given, whether through a smile, an act of kindness; when selfishness is not an option...within all of that lies....Love.

Love IS patient

Love IS Kind

Love knows no Boundaries to Exist Within...indeed, Love only exists to give of itself, to heal, to nurture, to swim in the hearts and minds and souls of others...to be exchanged, expressed, demonstrated, and to bind us together through its Gift...

So we seek these things...whether we call it happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, even LUST...what we seek ultimately...is indeed Love.

Love is the only act, the only emotion, the only Gift...that I know of that feeds on giving of itself while hungering to receive back the same that it offers...

Without LOVE...........what can there be I wonder. Gray skies; no blues, greens, mauves, magentas, chartreuses, pinks, purples.....depth, dimension, or purpose.

I choose to live my life loving...in every possible healthy way I can....even if I never..ever think I'm..receiving it back...as long as I can give it, I am rich...and...

="">I will know...LOVE.

Take my hand and let us be still and see the Love given to us freely by God....living within our eyes. Let us swim in one another's riches that no money can ever purchase or hoard.

Love doesn't Judge others....so let us try to be kind and remember that the greatest of all things is Love.

God IS Love.

I pray that His light, His Love, shines through my heart and mind and spirit. May I yield to a Loving Knowledge beyond our grasp of understanding. If I might learn to be Still and listen with ...Love.

When I see our Elderly taking a walk together and how very quiet they are in one another's presence...ah...so there it is again...Love.

Love is not Hard....or Cruel...or Sneaky or Deceitful. At the end of every day, I must look at my own face in the mirror and ask if I knew Love today...either in giving or receiving. I pray the scales are always tipped in favor of me GIVING. In doing so, I once again know Love and Love will come back to me in whatever form or shape or sight or sound or word or act.

May I seek out wisdom and keep my tongue, yet laugh easily, cry without shame, and bond with every soul I come across in some form of Love.....it may be my only chance to express it and allow it to be expressed through me By Him.

If I understand Nothing else about God, may I always understand how to Love. God IS Love.

So there again, we are Love Generators as long we open our minds and hearts to the most important of all things

LOVE.

---Valerie