RGW Inspiration: Words and Images

The Path You Choose I was reminded of this incredible woman, Ernestine Shepard, who, in her mid-seventies, became the oldest world female body-building champion. ( http://goo.gl/gsv7 ) And she didn't start her journey of success until late in life. For anything to exist in your life, it needs to be created. This includes your health -- good or bad. This includes your ability -- good or bad. This includes your emotional reactions -- good or bad. This includes your relationships -- good or bad. We create the bad stuff as much as the good. The truth is, many people don't take responsibility for what happens in their lives -- oftentimes believing that the choices they make in life are thrust upon them by "others" or circumstance. They forget that they are the ultimate cause in the forces of their own lives.  Sure, we get strapped down by mortgages, kids, medical liabilities and distressed family members. But the day that we walk out the door and say, "I, me, and only...

How to be loved Needing a bit more love in your life?  Now, you know the way things work, to get anything you're going to have to give it. If you are feeling a lack, it isn't that you aren't lovable, it is just that you need more practice! For anything to exist in your life you need to create it. This starts with loving others more. The more you practice, the more you open yourself to the love around you and the potential to receive then grows with it. You can practice on those around you for whom you already feel some affinity––but to earn real love, start practicing on the tougher cases around you. Like the garbage man who picks up your trash regularly. Like the person who cut you off on the freeway yesterday. Like the kid who keyed your new car. Like the homeless man who smells of sweat and urine. Open your heart to continue to love everyone around you despite whether you feel they've earned it or not and watch the love grow in your own life. It is one of those bits...

Uncertainty Do you feel uncertain? Are you fearful about what might happen if you try to create something new in your life? Are you afraid of failing, intimidated by what people might think of you or worried about all the things that could go wrong along your way? I had an interesting observation about this yesterday. Many of us are plagued by uncertainty, but most people have felt certain about at least one thing at some point in their lives. If you have, can you recall the circumstances surrounded that certainty? If you can't recall those circumstances, I can break it down a bit for you. Typically, in situations of certainty, you were actively doing something. You were moving forward rapidly enough on a plan of action that you didn't have time to worry about potential problems –– your brain was actively engaged in solving problems that actually existed. The more you were engaged in solving those problems, keeping your eye focused on your goal, the more your goal became a r...

The Three You are three. –– The person you are. –– The person they think you are. –– The person you think you are. ... Of the three, the last one is the only one that has the potential to hold you back the most. (rgw) #FloralFriday with thanks to Tamara Pruessner Eustace James Beth Akerman Kiki Nelson and FloralFriday #rgwoodpost #photography #googleplusphotos #inspiration   #FlowerFriday #flowerphotography #floralphotography #hqspflowers

All The Colors Together The only race that will be won, is when the only race there is is one.   The race of MANKIND. Words and image by Robin Griggs Wood (Interior, Hyatt Regency, San Francisco) ––––– #RepetitiveTuesday #promotephotography with thanks to #BTPArchitecturePro #rgwoodpost #googleplusphotos #canonphotography #canonphotographer #digitalphotography #color #colors #inspiration #creative #hqsparchitecture ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Please feel free to ask me, if you would like any of my images  available for print at robingriggswood.com

Overcoming Your Fear Firstly, I'm going to offer up a host of platitudes: “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” ~Andre Gide “Do one thing every day that scares you.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt “No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or another, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure.” ~Napoleon Hill “He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy." ~Dale Carnegie Actually, that last one is my real springboard ... ;o7 Here's the key to overcoming fear: DO! Fear isn't actually supposed to be the crippling emotion we allow it to be.  It's a driving force.  It's an energy source to be capitalized on! If you're feeling fearful about...

"That Brighter Day"   The changes you are looking for in your life will come about when you spend more time focusing on the things you want to have happen than the things you are worrying could happen.   ––––– #TreeTuesday #BreakfastClub  #10000photographersaroundtheworld  #promotephotography with  #TheMagicOfLight #LandscapePhotography #rgwoodpost #canonphotography #canonphotographer #digitalphotography #naturephotography #inspiration #color #colors #fineart #fineartpls #landscapeart #light ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Please feel free to ask me, if you would like any of my images  available for print at robingriggswood.com

the fools dance around the fire they did advance with clutching hands and began to dance they mumbled words in hypnotic trance beseeching cries in ancient chants the gods ignored their imploring stance and left them all to fate and chance perhaps to some a life enhanced will befall when wisdom grants –– Love posting to themes? You might enjoy these great themes with excellent curators! Themes and hashtags are not necessarily about getting more attention, but are a valuable indexing method, which help others find relevant posts via clickable links as well as a great way to meet like-minded people. I tend to only promote those themes with active, caring curators. #DOFMonday  with thanks to DOFMonday Mara Acoma Alan Gurling Mark Hall & Nigel Smith  #Macro4All with thanks to Walter Soestbergen Bill Urwin, Chris Levers  Mark O'Callaghan and Macro4All #rgwoodpost #canonphotography #canonphotographer #digitalphotography #naturephotography #color #colors #inspiration #canonphotograp...

Happy Raise your hand if you already knew that the decision to be happy always precedes the actual occurrence of happy ... ;o)) –– Love posting to themes? You might enjoy these great themes with excellent curators! Themes and hashtags are not necessarily about getting more attention, but are a valuable indexing method, which help others find relevant posts via clickable links as well as a great way to meet like-minded people. I tend to only promote those themes with active, caring curators. For the Macro Monday subtheme, HAPPY #MacroMonday with thanks to Kerry Murphy, Jennifer Eden, Kelli Seeger Kim  and Jake Easley #Macro4All with thanks to Walter Soestbergen Bill Urwin, Chris Levers  Mark O'Callaghan and Macro4All #ColorMeWeekly ColorMe Weekly with thanks to Rosie Nixon #rgwoodpost #canonphotography #canonphotographer #digitalphotography #naturephotography #color #colors #inspiration #canonphotography #macrophotography  #creative #flowerphotography #floralphotography ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀...

Mind Over Medicine Scientific proof that what you think effects your health? I am a big proponent of this … but then, it actually works for me. I know there are a lot of people who have difficulty accomplishing it, however. There is no doubt that it takes some genuine honesty with oneself to pull it off to any great effect. That honesty is the hardest part. "Lissa Rankin, M.D. is a physician whose research led her to discover that our bodies have natural self-repair mechanisms that can be activated or disabled based on thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that originate in the mind. "Her search uncovered not only proof that you can heal yourself, but also the shocking physiological mechanisms of how emotions like fear, loneliness, pessimism, and depression can make the body sick, while love, intimate connection, optimism, and faith can cure you." The video is long, so, if you are interested, bookmark it for later: Dr. Lissa Rankin: Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can...

"Keep Your Eye On the Sparrow" Your goals can become small, seemingly insignificant or lost amidst the cannonade of complications and streams of setbacks. Even enjoyable experiences can throw you off track (there's a reason they call them "diversions" … ;o)). "Keep your eye on the sparrow" means to maintain your focus on your target. That is the only way to realize your aspirations and it is the primary agent in every success story. Wishing you success in all you hope for!  …………. ––––– Love posting to themes? You might enjoy these great themes with excellent curators! Themes and hashtags are not necessarily about getting more attention, but are a valuable indexing method, which help others find relevant posts via clickable links as well as a great way to meet like-minded people. I tend to only promote those themes with active, caring curators. #WildlifeWednesday with thanks to Mike Spinak & Morkel Erasmus #BreakfastClub with huge thanks to Gemma ...

If you don't have the time to create what you want, to put your life right, to live your life well ... when, my friend, are you going to have the time to do it over? ....................... I hope you are having, or have a had, a great Sunday! "Sunday Afternoon" a painting by Robin Griggs Wood #rgwoodpost #color #colors #inspiration #sunsetphotography #fineart #fineartpls #artdesign #design #fantasy #fantasyart #fantasydigitalart #digital #creative #digitalart #fantasyart #surrealart   ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Please feel free to ask me, if you would like any of my images available for print at robingriggswood.com ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

––– Wallpaper, WALLPAPER! The other day, I found one of my paintings ( http://goo.gl/3STnp ) strewn around the Web on "free wallpaper" sites. They had gotten it off "CGSociety" (notorious for having works stolen from), cropped my signature off the bottom and ran it through a pixel bending program, stripping my copyright and generally uglifying it. Some even had the audacity to plop their copyright logo over mine. Not that this is anything new. What did I do? I was reminded on something a girlfriend, one of the great teachers in my own life, said to me one day, "When you make something, give it away … then you'll just have to make more." When you start to think of the works that you do as too important or significant you start to lose objectivity––the one thing you need for honing skills.  Make something, give it away, throw it away, burn it or just do it again.  Make it unimportant and you lose the stress and pressure -- those are the top two creativit...

Why can't I do the things I want to do? There's so much I know I'm capable of that I never actually do. Why is that? –– The trick is to realize that you're always doing what you want to do ... always. Nobody's making you do anything. Once you get that, you see that you're free and that life is really just a series of choices. Nothing happens to you. You choose. ~ The Answer Man …………. ––––– #SunsetSaturday #LandscapePhotography #hqsplandscape #rgwoodpost #amazing #naturephotography NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY Nature Photography #color #colors #inspiration #canonphotography #canonphotographer #digitalphotography #sunsetphotography #skyphotography (\_(\ (=’ :’) :* (,(”)(”)¤°.¸¸.•´¯`»#Spring ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀

Open to the Potential ––– Life: 10% is circumstance. The other 90% is your reaction to it, your attitude and what you decide to do with it  …………. ––––– #FloralFriday with thanks to Tamara Pruessner #BreakfastClub with huge thanks to Gemma Costa and Breakfast Club 10000 PHOTOGRAPHERS / #10000photographersaroundtheworld  with thanks to Robert SKREINER and Nikola Nikolski #hqspmacro with thanks to Vinod Krishnamoorthy Rinus Bakker Vishal Kumar and HQSP Macro #hqspflowers with thanks to HQSP Flowers Marina Versaci Carina Marsh Larry Henley and Werner Polwein Macro4All   #Macro4All with thanks toWalter Soestbergen and Shane Williams #rgwoodpost #naturephotography NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY #colors   #inspiration #canonphotography #canonphotographer #macrophotography #flowerphotography #floralphotography #TGIF

Change the World; I Dare You ––– There's a Buckminster Fuller quote that says it all to me: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."   Ever since I got on social media, since day one, my whole thrust/purpose/goal/intention ... whatever you want to call it ... has been to change the world. Yes, indeedy.  I know that I sound a bit like a self-deluding airhead when I say such things, but I bought completely an idea that was circulated––that to achieve anything, one has to shoot much farther than the target.   I decided to keep everything that I put out into the world as positive as I could muster for that day. That was to stand in the face of everything that was pulling this world down. Bad news; bad attitudes; bad behavior. I don't tackle all of that stuff head on, I merely change the focus. So maybe I only change the lives of 20, 200 or 2000 in my whole life ... that's...

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own." ~ Benjamin Disraeli  Why I mentor others here at G+: A while back, I was searching for my purpose in life. At the time, I was mentoring at an online art community. Over and over again, I would get comments from people such as, "I would love to be an artist, but I have no talent"; "I wish I were gifted, but clearly I wasn't meant to be an artist"… and there was real sadness and disappointment in their commentary. But I knew the truth, that where I started from gave no indication of "talent" in my early years, and that what I had gone through showed me clearly that art was an inherent part of our nature as human beings. Yet this concept was lost in current society and wasn't being nurtured.  There is a lie being perpetuated in society that I call the "myth of talent". The Myth of Talent I have often had people, when I tell t...

L ♡ V E ––– Definition:  *When someone else's happiness means more to you than your own.* … happy Valentine's Day.  …………. ––––– #BreakfastClub  #10000photographersaroundtheworld  #hqspart  #rgwoodpost #inspiration #ValentinesDay2013 #ValentinesDay #love #wedding #weddingphotography

Are you an artist? ––– If you are a photographer and you've ever wondered if you are an artist, I offer you this from Ansel Adams: "Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art."   Sure, there are photographers that only document what is in front of their lens, and you may well be one of those. So how can you tell if you are an artist? This is what I tell my students:  You are an artist if you wish to create something with your media which communicates more than its component parts.   Now, you become a remarkable artist when you become fluent in the language of how to communicate with the tools of art and move past merely documenting what is in front of your lens.  An artist will use these tools to show us what we have never seen before.   The best artists will show us what we never could have imagined.  This is the stuff that makes your jaw drop, makes you stop in your tracks and makes you say, "Wow!"  I am still a...

––– Show a Little Kindness ––– A rare verbal image post from me, but I've been encountering so many folks lately that have been using less than favorable words to describe themselves, it had to be said … and loudly. You are the best friend that you have, and you deserve the kindness you bestow upon others.  …………. ––––– #FloralFriday with thanks to Tamara Pruessner #BreakfastClub with huge thanks to Gemma Costa and Breakfast Club 10000 PHOTOGRAPHERS around the World / #10000photographersaroundtheworld  with thanks to Robert SKREINER Macro4All     #rgwoodpost #naturephotography #inspiration #macrophotography #flowerphotography #floralphotography #waterdropsphotography #waterdrop ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Please feel free to ask me, if you would like this image available for print at robingriggswood.smugmug.com ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀