I ask, "How are you inspired?" and this is the result.
If you want to answer please send me a note titled "WAI".

Thank you *katiexwells for your story!

^"DeviantART is really just an amazing place. About two years ago, my friend, ~xXIsolation-TheoryXx (she had a different account then) told me about DA and asked me if I wanted to check it out. So, I did, and I made an account. At first I just tried drawing, but not all of us are as skilled at arts involving pencils and paint brushes. I wasn't all that good, and I mostly just went around DA, looking at other people's work, not even really using dAmn at all."



"So, after a while, I got bored and I left. I began writing a little, trying to pull some inspiration out of events in my life to write songs but not putting anything up on dA. When I was two years old, my brother, who was thirteen at the time, died. I didn't get to know him at all, and me, being fifteen now, don't really remember him much. My aunt died from a drug overdose about a year and a half ago...and that took quite a toll on my family as well. I was sad because I was drawing most of inspiration out of depressing events in my life. I wrote prose, I wrote about no hope and giving up...things didn't look good.

I've noticed how much happier I am now, with photography occupying my mind...

About a month later, after the depression had started, I went on a cruise with my school's ballroom dance company, which I had been in that year. My friend, Rachel, had brought her mom's camera: a Nikon D40. I had never really thought much about photography before, about how it's really an art and how much work can go into a composition. I had my own small camera, just a plain digital Canon SD750 and on the trip I began to take some photos."



"When I got home, I made a new account, hoping that by starting fresh it'd erase the past. And it sort of did. With photography as my new passion, I pulled myself out of the depression that I was so hopelessly lost in before. I used my interests as inspiration, taking photos of my cats, and setting things up for some sort of musical inspired photos. I love music and sometimes when I want to be inspired, I sit and listen to the same song over and over again, ideas forming in my mind.

I then decided to check out dAmn and found a place called *photohunt. It really is the game for inspiration, and I was becoming very addicted. Before, I hadn't really come on dA that much, not really thinking twice about it. But now I'm on practically every day, all the time. I absolutely adore taking photos and have gotten Adobe Photoshop CS3 now to edit photos. As time wore on, my photos seemed to be getting better and I began to look at other photographers on dA, admiring their work and giving them critique and praise. I've been working at home, cleaning the house and such, to earn money to get a new camera. I'm thinking of getting a Nikon D40, it was after all, the first camera to catch my attention and get me interested in photography. I've noticed how much happier I am now, with photography occupying my mind, and I'm thinking about it everywhere and seeing many things around me as potential inspiration for a new photo."



"For all of those out there who don't think photography is really such a big deal or a form of art, as how I felt before all this, I'd encourage them to check out the photography section of deviantART and maybe even try it out. You don't need a whole big fancy camera, especially when you're beginning. After all, like my friend *Metris once told me, "It's not the camera that makes the photo...it's the photographer behind it."_"

More work from *katiexwells

[I advise viewing her Scraps (most of which I feel shouldn't be scraps).]

Inspiration leads to creation.

WAI Archive: jupiterkat2007