Much Ado About Nothing

BY SUZANNE WILLIAMS

When I sit down to write an article, generally speaking I have the seed of an idea already formed in my head. They come to me most often at about five in the morning when all in the world is quiet and asleep. (All except me, it seems.) I usually lay there and stare at the ceiling, mulling over what points substantiate the idea or what photographs to include. Later, when I actually sit down to type it all out, it's square in my thinking and flows smoothly down to the page.

This is not one of those articles.

The fact is, about twice a year I come up empty. Sometimes I am too busy; other times I am tired or not feeling well. Whatever the reason, the deadline for posting always approaches, and the harder I think on it, the more I become like a Seinfeld episode "about absolutely nothing". If there is one thing I've learned about writing, it's that inspiration cannot be pushed. When it's not there, it's simply not there. It's in times like these that I turn then to other areas to get myself going again.

Here's an example.

My brother is forever photographing his granddaughter. She is the cutest little thing with a personality as big as her smile. My own daughter is a teenager and seems to be going through the, "No, Mom, don't photograph me," point of her life, so I live now vicariously through "Grandpa Dole's" images of her. (Dole is not his name, but how she pronounces his name.) No matter what I am doing, she always brings a smile to my face. Who would not want to take up photographing children if they were as adorable as she is?

I've also taken to watching a lot of films from the 1930s and 40s. I have yet to pinpoint the appeal they have for me. I think it is partially because they are so much "cleaner" than a lot of what's on television. The rest might be the idea of "living history", seeing things my grandparents grew up with.

The other evening in flipping the channel, I happened across one from 1956 with quite the cast - Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, even Louis Armstrong. Soon the plot of the film became secondary to the music. It was that superb! I really liked the jazz number (below) with Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong singing duet. You just cannot get much better than that!

"So what is the point?," you ask.

Well, this IS a blog about nothing, isn't it? On the other hand, I think my thought is that sometimes you can find inspiration in areas where you least expect it. I love, love, love photography, and I enjoy flipping through the online galleries of other people's images as much as doing anything else. In fact, I do this a lot to stimulate my own imagination. But sometimes, especially when I am running on empty, I take a break and just find something small that makes me smile. I take a happy minute all to myself.

You know, it comes to me now that maybe this blog isn't about nothing. Maybe in the end it was about something after all.

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Suzanne Williams Photography
Florida, USA

Suzanne Williams is a native Floridian, wife, and mother, with a penchant for spelling anything, who happens to love photography.