Focus
I’ve been working recently on a short-term contract as account manager in a large photographic studio. I’d never worked in an environment like this before and it’s taught me some very interesting things.
When I first walked round the studio floor and watched models wearing jewellery being photographed next to a dining furniture set, next to barbecues complete with grilled burgers, next to fully decorated Christmas trees, I was amazed. Huge lights all over the place, cameras, iMacs, cables snaking all over the place, art directors, photographers and stylists swarming over multiple sets, music playing loudly, set-builders hammering and painting. Organised chaos!
But the resulting photographs are great. You would never in a million years know that the beautifully decorated dining table you’re admiring online and thinking you might buy was shot not on location in some edgy urban loft but in a tiny corner of the studio, with walls formed of two large painted boards set at right angles, into one of which is set an empty window frame, behind which there’s a transparent sheet, behind which there’s a tall lamp which simulates natural daylight coming through the window.
The photograph is the end result of the fusion of creative imagination, technical skill, and focus (in both the photographic and human sense!).
The people on that set were able to filter out the noise and chaos all around them to create that little photographic oasis.
And I realised life can be like that if we have the discipline.
Almost all of us live in varying states of chaos, with competing demands, unexpected events, days too short to fit in all those fascinating things we want to do and see.
We feel pulled in too many directions at once, perhaps especially as we grow older and realise there’s a decreasing amount of time for every delicious thing we’d like to do.
What I’ve been trying to do is focus on one thing at a time. Give it my full attention. Let everything else around me go to pot, just for the time being.
The thing is, it’s a bit like meditation. There will be times when outside thoughts intrude. You remember you’ve got to pick up the dry cleaning, pay the bills, do the grocery shopping. Notice those thoughts and let them go past.
It’s a great way to bring your life into focus and enjoy the journey.
What tips do you have for creating little pools of focus in a busy life?
Photo credit: emi yanez
great post.I avoid multi-tasking and remember to take mini-breaks between jobs.
Hi uma, welcome to the blog. Yes, mini-breaks are great. Even if they sometimes turn into maxi-breaks!
Very beautifully written post, Tess. The job sounds exciting too !! Stuff I do online I notice is 100-fold more pulled together than the cramped and jumbled workspace it’s created in. I truly believe that stability and sanity AND the most creative organization is best derived out of some sort of swirling abyss — not just in one’s work environment, but various trials, even love (=total chaos), for instance ((-:
Sarah recently posted..The High Line • Keep on the Path
Sarah, think you’re right – that swirling abyss yields some amazing things. I was looking at your High Line photographs – absolutely stunning, thanks for linking to them!
I’ll be honest: the environment you described and the subjects of the photo-shoots felt distasteful to me, like they’re part of the mainstream culture I want little to do with.
On the other hand, I really like your takeaway. Focus is a beautiful thing — and, it’s our job to create it, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing, no matter what the context is.
Good post.
Alison, yes I have something of the same reservation, but to voice it above would have made the post too lengthy and complicated. This isn’t a job I’d sign up for permanently. But I’ve developed huge admiration for the sheer talent and imagination of the people in the studio.
I think I like this post even more after reading these two comments.
Sue recently posted..Dream Figures
— Amen to that.
I do not function well in busy noisy environments such as you describe unless I have some kind of noise block/insulator, such as an MP3 player. I work from home (or will do if I can ever find a job!) and my only neighbors are gone during the day, so the house is very quiet.
WOL recently posted..You Gotta See This!
A quiet house is such balm!
Like a Lectio Divina.
Inspired by the nuns on Turvey Abbey, I am working on a lectio divina blog post.
BrittArnhild recently posted..Eldfjall, the movie
BrittArnhild, welcome to my blog. Yes, exactly like a Lectio Divina. I am so looking forward to your blog post.
Writing helps me create pools of focus in exactly the same way you describe here, and then I feel like I can really “see” everything in its proper focus, the beautiful aspects of it that get overlooked in the everyday.
This post was good to read after watching the TED talk with Jill Bolte Taylor (http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html), an oldie but a goodie, where she talks about what it felt like having a stroke and falling into that right-brain beautifulness. It left me inspired that yes, really and ultimately, it’s all about simply making the switch at any one time. There is a certain amount of work you can do on yourself, and containers you leave empty throughout your so that you can fill them with beauty and awesomeness, but in the end I need to switch over. And to remind myself that that “land” is always there and always available, with just a jump to be made (which, admittedly, some days is a chasm, and I need to go and do a whole range of things and empty myself out ito a whole lot of containers before I can find the chasm has closed back into a ditch, again
This fills me with a sense of calm that I sorely need at the moment
Sue recently posted..Dream Figures
Hi Sue, yes to the writing – like the “Small Stones” we were doing. And I love that Jill Bolte Taylor talk – inspirational. If anyone reading this hasn’t seen it, click the link in Sue’s comment above – well worth it.