I took this picture on a trip to London a few years back. I nearly always go and visit Liberty's store off Regent St. While walking up the stairs I saw this lime green painted bust and took a picture of it with my holga camera. (Actually it was much more lurid looking in 'real' life). I always always take my camera with me when I leave the house or / country. Even on the most simply banale or ordinary seeming days I could walk down Leith Walk or Lothian Road (or as my mother calls it Loathesome Road) and see an amazing sky or something which I would miss and never see again. Often I don't take my camera out of my bag but its there if something amazing or arresting to the eye comes up. The expense of medium format film makes me more picky than I was with the lomo camera. The point is my life is organised to capture my inspiration. When buying a handbag I test it for holga compatibility, extra spools of film are chucked in the bottom of my bag, I make special trips to photographic paradises on holiday. 

When inspiration strikes inspiration strikes and its best to make use of it at once. So if a writer who over hears a particularly delicious phrase on a bus must have pen and paper handy. Writer Anne Lamott never leaves the house without an index card and something to write with just incase. And you never do remember without writing it down...sorry a painfully learned lesson. And don't get me onto the subject of unmade documentaries because I waited for funding and the subjects got ill and died off !

At the same time when something does spark an interest  - follow it. It doesn't matter if it seems somewhat pointless or nebulous. We never know where one thing leads. An afternoon readiing newspaper microfiches lead to another documentary proposal later on on an entirely different subject that I was researching. Thank goodness I kept a note of the 'pointless diversion'.

If you feel lacking in inspiration my advice is to step away from the computer get out and walk. I find cities most stimulating, others find nature better. Allow yourself a bit of time to wander, eavesdrop, have stimulating conversations, remember forgotten pleasures.

And that picture above? a few months later I returned to London and Liberty's. I went up the same staircase and found that plaster statue smashed and lying on the window sill. If I hadn't taken the photograph then and there, if I hadn't taken extra film with me that day I would not have that picture.

Written for Week 2 of the blog along for 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women