Brooke Shaden

I talk often about the excitement I feel when I look at a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and when someone asks me what I am inspired by I will often cite those paintings as a reference. I am drawn to painting in general, but in terms of what I feel close to artistically, those are the pieces of art that do it. I have always loved the ethereal beauty of them, as though the girls are timeless and lost in a dream land. I like the textured look that the paintings take on, where the true blacks are almost skewed brown and the whites have a milky warm glow about them. I am inspired by them. My image today was inspired by Ophelia (certainly one of the most well known Pre-Raphaelite paintings out there) by Millais.

But then yesterday my husband said something that really made me think. He said “It is almost as if you have been waiting to create this image since you began photography because it is so intrinsically ‘you’ rather than being inspired by that painting” (or something along those lines). And I really had to think about that, because sometimes inspiration can get tangled. It is very true, I adore doing shots in the creek, I love the murky water, I love the reflections I get in there. I also love photographing death and the process of dying, or the sentiment. I also shoot mostly women. So this image is so close to something I might create on my own that he questioned my inspiration. This makes me question where inspiration comes from.

Was I inspired to recreate this painting because I was truly struck by the painting as an incredible piece of art that I saw as a challenge, or did I choose it because it so closely resembled something that I might think of myself? Am I drawn to this style of art because I feel a connection with it on a personal and creative level, as though I might have been (or tried to be) a Pre-Raphaelite painter given that I lived in that time period? I have never thought of inspiration in that way before. I think that inspiration, for me, comes from a place where my personal style of art comes across in some way through another artist. For example, if you look through my favorites on flickr, a lot of the shots showcase people showing a lot of skin because that is what I like to photograph myself. All of the paintings I research have similar themes and sentiments. I am never drawn to something that I would not want to create myself. I know that there are people out there who love art because it is so different from who they are. I suppose I do not fall into that category.

If you go to dictionary.com and type in “inspiration”, one of the definitions you will get is “the drawing of air into the lungs; inhalation”. I found this to be the most accurate definition for me, because that is exactly the feeling I am trying to describe. Inspiration does not come from places that I cannot connect with, it is as natural as the air I breathe. It is something so connected to who I am that I confuse it with my own personal style. We breathe in our inspiration, for me the Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and when I exhale I produce a new mixing of chemicals, a reinterpretation of that inspiration. What we do with our inspiration is the exhalation.