My name is Rob, and I don't like writing when I have no inspiration. But, sometimes, I do it anyway.
Last weekend I made a trip to Florence, AL to watch a friend of mine belly dance at the North Alabama Renaissance Faire.
I thought to myself on several occasions This is gonna make an excellent blog post!
Upon editing all the photos and distributing them all over Facebook, I sat down to write about my experience. I couldn't come up with anything interesting. There was no story to tell.
Sure, there was fun to be had, and I had all of it. I drank some tasty home-made root beer, and browsed all the wares on display, and watched a belly dance performance (which I had never done before), and watched a pig do tricks, and gawked at all the folks dressed up, and watched some people fighting with actual swords, and all kinds of other stuff.
The thing is, I can't tell you about it. Well, I mean, I just did, but not in any useful sort of manner.
There are no words.
And, that's ok.
You know what I do have?
Photos capture things there are no words for. Emotions. Mood. Movement. Atmosphere. Soul.
A lot of times I'm out playing with my camera, I'm doing it for me, even if I'm photographing an event with the intent of gaining exposure for myself. I'm trying to capture something that can take me some place, whether it be a memory of what I saw or felt, or some place I've completely made up.
As I've been sitting here mashing buttons on my laptop, deleting letters and re-writing words, I've come to a conclusion - the reason I don't have a story to tell.
That day, I wasn't doing it for me. My express purpose was to capture memories for other people - to let them go back to that moment and feel what they felt then, or to let other people experience what happened that afternoon without having been there.
I think I've done just that. There have been more clicks on that particular album than anything else I've ever posted(by more than 30 fold).
I've gotta tell ya. It feels good, man.