Inspiration

Where does inspiration come from? How do you know, when you look at something, that it will be a great work of art if you can just capture it in a way that people will feel when they look at it? Can you train your mind to think outside the box? Or does seeing beauty in every day things, and being able to show that beauty to other people the same way you see it, something you have to be born with? Is inspiration ingrained or learned?

I am having the hardest time coming up with ideas and my portfolio is sorely lacking because of it. I want to create photographs that show the beauty of life, the wonder in normality. Photos that show that even when your life is mundane and simple, it's extraordinary. Of course I can wax poetic all day, but that doesn't mean that anything I take a photo of will be anything but ordinary. I have felt a bit inspired recently, but it seems like portraying what my mind sees in a print is next to impossible. I am starting to see a pattern with the things I shoot, and I don't know if it is a pattern that I want to be defined as my "style". I wish I could create raw, dirty, edgy images.

At this point I wish I could CREATE anything. I am afraid that my ability to perceive and invent will never evolve past where it is right now.