In the spirit of collaboration, this blog has been opened up to past participants of thevisualCollective trips, so they can share their experiences, hopes, dreams, and downfalls with the world.
Today, we feature Genevieve Clayton, who decided to come on the Death Valley trip less than an hour after she’d heard about it from a friend.
This is her story and a few of her photographs:
thevisualCollective. I first read the name and thought, “hmm, that just sounds like something you would want to be a part of…” thevisualCollective. Why yes, I am part of thevisualCollective…oh that? That’s a photo from thevisualCollective. The beginning was an attachment to the sound of the title. I mean, come on… it sounds bad ass! Then you look into it… a collective of creators, just creating. Now THAT sounds bad ass. To continue, you realize where this idea came from and how it came about… and yes, that is bad ass as well. However bad ass everything seems in the beginning, words cannot begin to address the attachment that grow out of the actual experience. One BAD ASS experience, I should say.
As a photographer, being asked to go on a photographic adventure (the day of mind you) was answered with an overly enthusiastic YES followed by a million questions. For me it was deciding to go, then finding out the details. Detail after detail unveiled itself and the overly enthusiastic YES became an obnoxious repetition of YES YES YES like a broken toy you want to throw against the wall. It sum it up, I was stoked. Stoked, but nervous. Who were these people? I have only met a few of them, only talked to a few of them, and only really knew 2 of them. What on earth should I be expecting, getting into a car with strangers?! This could either be potentially really bad, or really good. It wasn’t good at all, it was magical.
Getting into a car of strangers is not what happened. Getting into a ridiculous adventure with many talented people was what happened. The first thing I learned, and will never cherish more: have absolutely NO expectations, they will get you into a state of mind that hinders capabilities necessary to be free. Freedom. Now let me talk about freedom. The freedom to express your ideas, without stressing about what the other photographers are going to think….The freedom to realize that they are learning from you just as much as you are learning from them…The freedom to exaggerate your creative ideals to the point of abstract tangibility (if that doesn’t make sense to you, you obviously have not attended a tvC trip). Try to fathom that, and you will know my experience with thevisualCollective.
Maintaining myself, while collecting from others. It about a group who has no inhibitions and respects each other’s creative outlook just as much as their own. Of course there are difference among the group, style for one. I am more of a photojournalism style, others more commercial. However, that difference is something I used to drive myself to see things differently. Why not add a bit of commercial flair to my PJ? Experimenting. Experimental change is what releases you from constraints that will inevitably cause your creative demise. Bottom line: the first thevisualCollective trip changed my outlook so much, and I appreciate everything that happened and what I got out of it so much… that I physically cannot contain myself when I read “thevisualCollective v2.0”. It’s an explosion of memories and ideas and anxiousness that one can only feel deeply. Deeply in the innards of my being. Deeply in the heart that pumps for everything thevisualCollective has opened my mind and eyes to. Deeply in the anticipation for more.
- Genevieve Clayton
Stay tuned for guest posts, pictures, videos, and much much more!
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