{"id":11273,"date":"2013-06-13T09:34:07","date_gmt":"2013-06-13T13:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?p=11273"},"modified":"2013-06-13T09:34:07","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T13:34:07","slug":"track-your-influences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/","title":{"rendered":"Track Your Influences"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Suffusion I, Palm Beach, Florida 2001<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Sometimes ideas just seem to come out of nowhere. But do they?
\nWe have so many experiences everyday, whether commonplace and routine or extraordinary and novel, it\u2019s hard to say what registers as significant or even important. We\u2019re influenced by so many things \u2013 our history, environment, community, actions, etc \u2013\u00a0that it\u2019s hard to know when one thing leads to another. Often we refashion these materials, sometimes combining them, into something new, so when the resurface it\u2019s not easy to recognize where they came from. What do we connect with? When do we connect with it? Do we know when it happens? Only if we\u2019re mindful.
\nAwareness of what influences us is something that we can develop. To do this we need to develop a greater sensitivity to our environment and history in it (both personal and cultural) as well as to our actions and attitudes in relation to the activities and tone of our communities. Inquisitiveness is all you need. Ask a lot of questions. Don\u2019t assume you know the answers. Don\u2019t judge yourself or the answers you find along the way. Just collect information. By becoming aware of your influences you\u2019ll be less controlled by them, see more options, and so have more and make clearer choices. Journalling can be an excellent way to develop this discipline and to reflect further on your influences while you\u2019re making new or reviewing old entries. Once you experience the many benefits awareness of your influences brings, you\u2019ll want to cultivate this habit. It can be a source of clarity, of personal insight, and even of purpose. Time and time again, this has been true for me.
\nSometimes the insights awareness brings are surprising. One day, after Suffusion I<\/em> had been hanging on my studio wall for months, I moved a snapshot of my grandmother\u2019s ashes in the ocean (I had been unable to attend her funeral so I kept the photograph my father brought me close for a time.) across my studio. As soon as I saw the two images simultaneously in my field of vision the similarities and connections between them became clear. Since I made it, I had been trying to understand Suffusion I<\/em> better. I knew some of the undercurrents at work in it; growing concerns about climate change and global warming; the ever-changing nature of existence and perception; watching smoke as a form of meditation; using smoke as a form of prayer. But I hadn\u2019t guessed that it had anything to do with death and cremation. It would be a mistake to say this image \u2013\u00a0and the other images like it in this series \u2013 was about death. It\/they are about much, much more. That\u2019s part of what makes them so good. They\u2019re complex.
\nYou might be tempted to say that the influences were simple. The environmental and temporal factors were obvious. A good friend (Timothy Morrissey) had shown me how he photographed smoke and mist in his studio and I made exposures with him. The next day we went fishing and I made more exposures. Much later, I combined images from the two days. But that wouldn\u2019t have explained why I chose to do this; I could have chosen one of thousands of other exposures from other years. Nor would that explain that I liked the results enough to print, frame, and exhibit the results. There was more going on in this image <\/em>than first met the eye. I knew this, which is why I was still curious about it \u2013\u00a0and it probably has something to do with why others are curious about it too. I\u2019m still curious. Our best work gets ahead of us and it takes time to catch up to it. Sometimes it continues to reward us for years to come \u2013 or even a lifetime.
\nQuestions<\/em>
\nHow many things influence you?<\/em>
\nHow many things can you do to increase your awareness of what influences you?<\/em>
\nWhat are the best ways to track your influences?<\/em>
\nWhat benefits do you find from looking back on how your influences develop, flow, and grow?<\/em>
\nCan you use the insights about your past reactions to inspire new actions? <\/em>
\nHow many ways can you proactively influence your influences?<\/em>
\nFind out more about this image here.<\/a>
\nView more related images here.<\/a>
\nRead more The Stories Behind The Images here.<\/a>
\nRead more about Influences here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suffusion I, Palm Beach, Florida 2001 Sometimes ideas just seem to come out of nowhere. But do they? We have so many experiences everyday, whether commonplace and routine or extraordinary and novel, it\u2019s hard to say what registers as significant or even important. We\u2019re influenced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11278,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[61],"tags":[6,2953,3173],"post_folder":[],"yoast_head":"\nTrack Your Influences - John Paul Caponigro<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Track Your Influences - John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Suffusion I, Palm Beach, Florida 2001 Sometimes ideas just seem to come out of nowhere. But do they? We have so many experiences everyday, whether commonplace and routine or extraordinary and novel, it\u2019s hard to say what registers as significant or even important. We\u2019re influenced...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Paul Caponigro\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-06-13T13:34:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/SuffusionI_2004_425.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"425\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"585\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"johnpaulcaponigro\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Track Your Influences - John Paul Caponigro","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Track Your Influences - John Paul Caponigro","og_description":"Suffusion I, Palm Beach, Florida 2001 Sometimes ideas just seem to come out of nowhere. But do they? We have so many experiences everyday, whether commonplace and routine or extraordinary and novel, it\u2019s hard to say what registers as significant or even important. We\u2019re influenced...","og_url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/","og_site_name":"John Paul Caponigro","article_published_time":"2013-06-13T13:34:07+00:00","og_image":[{"width":425,"height":585,"url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/SuffusionI_2004_425.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"johnpaulcaponigro","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/","name":"John Paul Caponigro","description":"Illuminating Creativity","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/SuffusionI_2004_425.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/SuffusionI_2004_425.jpg","width":425,"height":585},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/","name":"Track Your Influences - John Paul Caponigro","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2013-06-13T13:34:07+00:00","dateModified":"2013-06-13T13:34:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/858a1050968a36008905f1980aae47b0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/11273\/track-your-influences\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Track Your Influences"}]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/858a1050968a36008905f1980aae47b0","name":"johnpaulcaponigro","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/309d46e93fff33337943899d8f3269cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/309d46e93fff33337943899d8f3269cf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"johnpaulcaponigro"},"url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/author\/johnpaulcaponigro\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/SuffusionI_2004_425.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11273"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=11273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}