Driftwood. Taken 10/24/2010. Canon PowerShot A 1100 IS.
“We live in a world where we’re all striving for perfection. We want the perfect face, the perfect body, the perfect car, the perfect job, the perfect partner, the perfect Facebook profile, you know, the perfect friends, the perfect children…From what I can understand, the thing about wabi-sabi is that it says that the perfection and the beauty is in the imperfection. When I first heard that, it made complete sense to me…And, to me, it was [a] powerful and very, very freeing notion and idea, that what makes you uniquely you is your imperfection, and that’s what’s beautiful.” – Brian Molko, Hennessy Artistry Secret Session Interview, Japan, March 2010
As a recovering perfectionist, this quote really resonates with me, even as the gremlins come back with a whole list of things beginning with “but.”
I feel similarly about this photo. I really like it. It’s compelling. Blown up you can see so much detail in the driftwood, and the light catches on remnant strands of spiderweb. (Click on the photo, zoom in and take a look.) The light is great! The foreground composition is interesting, as is the artistic blurring of the background.
But, the background is at an odd angle. It’s not straight, as I meant it to be. Therefore, it’s not entirely perfect. It’s perfectly imperfect.
One of the images on my dreamboard this month has printed on it, “Wabi-sabi your life.” To me, that means trying to stay mindful that beauty and other good things can be found in imperfection. Snapping this shot this past Sunday, and keeping it, was a step into that.
May we all find the beauty in imperfection.
P.S. You may wish to take a look at Xanthe Berkeley‘s post, “Perfectly Different,” over at the Shutter Sisters blog, which is along the same lines.
Spiritual Semaphore 