In the entrance of the first big ad agency I worked for, on the wall, was the one expression that has challenged me more than anything else in my career. It was attributed to Ray Rubicam and it simply said “Resist The Usual”. If you take that to heart, really take that to heart, then your creativity will flourish. It may not always be good, but it won’t be boring. I took this picture from the basket of a hot air balloon. “The Usual” would have been the wide landscape shots that I took just to record the moment. They would have looked nice, but there would have been no intrigue. And so, leaning out as far as I dare and aiming straight down, I tried my best to capture a slice of life that most people wouldn’t have seen before. Once opened on my desktop, the image spoke more to me than it did in the balloon. There we all are, isolated in our back yards, all our toys at the ready, a part of but also apart from the world around us. Take away those fences and we may possibly start to understand the need to work together for a greater cause. Because our gardens are pretty doesn’t mean the planet is healthy.
Guestbook Earth, Canada
