Late Bloomer: Julia Margaret Cameron

  

"When we are angry or depressed in our creativity,

we have misplaced our power.

We have allowed someone else to determine our worth,

and then we are angry at being undervalued."

~Julia Margaret Cameron

Photos on this page are attributed to
Julia Margaret Cameron.

This month I've been researching creative women in the arts.
I recently discovered the moody portraits of photographer,
Julia Margaret Cameron, 1815-1879.

What I find so inspiring about Mrs. Cameron is that, after completing her first career of raising six children, she then began her eleven-year photography career in her 48th year! She was self-taught and developed her own style of portraiture. Her images are soft focused and dream like. While she is considered an amateur photographer, having never made a living at it, she photographed the celebrities of her day like poets Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning, painter George Frederick Watts, astronomer Sir John Herschel, and scientist Charles Darwin, to name a few. While her artistic approach was considered incorrect at the time, it seems to have influenced a great many photographers today. 

I also resonated with Cameron as a trouble maker; she pushed the boundaries of religious creeds by portraying Christ in a more natural, realistic way than was popularly accepted. She also portrayed women in an unusual light – solemn, resolute, resigned – revealing an unapologetic look into their inner thoughts and feelings. This effect most probably grew out of the fact that models had to hold the pose for so long that smiling would have been impossible. Nevertheless, Cameron produced some of the most emotional and thought provoking images of the Victorian age

that still have their place in history today.

To read more about her, check out this link.

Cameron often portrayed children as cherubs.

 Fun fact: Julia Margaret Cameron's great-niece is....writer, Virginia Woolf.

Creativity: The Tablet of Your Being

"Mind Passages", digital image by S'zanne Reynolds

Webster defines the verb reflect as "to consider mentally, specifically, to attend earnestly to what passes within the mind." And, reflection is defined as "any state in which the mind considers its own content."

If every day you reflect on the face in the mirror, telling it that you are not so beautiful or talented, not so strong or energetic, not so youthful or vigorous...then you will soon hear the world tell you that you're not so good at anything, anymore. Disguised as your own thoughts you may then suddenly find yourself thinking, "I have nothing to offer, I have nothing to create."


"Cool Contemplations", digital image by S'zanne Reynolds

In this state of mind, it's impossible to be creative. It's pure self-destruction that effaces the very tablet of your being. In order to be creative, you must contemplate the qualities you desire to feel, see and be--the creative, energetic and beautiful-- in order to express them. In other words, you must claim being the very expression of this beautiful, creative divine Mind of the universe in order to see yourself reflected in it, as the expression of it.

So, it's time to silence the disgruntled voices in your head and find your divine creative reflection in the mirror! Face to face with your creative Spirit-Source, you will recall why it is that you are part of the creative process, the One all-together Lovely.


"Hot Mamma Nature", digital image by S'zanne Reynolds

Go outside and see how many beautiful and varied reflections you can find in nature. Then reflect them back to yourself on canvas or camera...on the very tablet of your creative being!