Unbound Magazine

Katie D.

December 10, 2011 - 7:17 PM

I have some great news: some of my photography will be published in Unbound Magazine! Unbound is an online publication through the University of Oregon, and they publish poetry, art, fiction, and creative non-fiction. I have considered submitting work to them before, but have felt inexplicably shy for a long time about it.

You can find their publication here: http://www.unboundlit.com/unbound/home.php

I submitted five photos from my time in Costa Rica this summer. Two were chosen for publication in the fall edition-I haven't heard back yet about a poem. Regardless, I'm really excited to have some photography selected. I haven't done much work with visual art, and would really like to work on my photography skills in the future. I have a few good friends who are photographers, and I have always felt that photography can be a powerful way to express emotion and document the world in a powerfully beautiful way. Since I've had such great luck in traveling to beautiful places, I would like to learn to turn these experiences into art, rather than just taking pictures to prove I was there.

The five pictures I submitted were a series I took at the ocean in Costa Rica, playing with reflections in the water and the interactions between the ocean and the beach. In the right light, there are some really beautiful moments when sky or scenery are reflected in the water. I'll put two of the pictures which weren't selected here on the blog to show what I was working on.

In the midst of all the wildness of school and thesis writing and work, it's often easy to forget to be creative. But this is a huge part of my life, and brings me a great deal of satisfaction. I'm hoping to use this publication to re-launch my focus on being creative, in addition to being an academic. I have a friend who made a New Year's Resolution one year to collect fifty rejection slips in one year. That's a little horrifying to me: that's a lot of rejection of your art, and a lot of commitment to publication. But that's how artists have to be in the pursuit of getting their work into the world-courageous and dedicated. I don't think I'll be able to go that wild in a commitment to writing and photography, but I would like to find a way to continue to pursue this passion. Perhaps I'll make a goal of 25 submissions of writing or artwork over the course of a year. That seems more reasonable, and it would take the success or rejection of that work out of the equation.

In any event, through a quota system or not, I've got to feed my creative side. I've taken to carrying my camera around with me, and trying to look at the world like an artist. These three years of blogging have helped me see my daily life as story-worthy, so now I need to learn to see my surroundings as art.

I like this challenge: wish me luck! And if you have experience with this, send me some suggestions for publishing opportunities. This feels like a good goal for winter break this year.