Practising out in the open can sometimes lead to a happy accident

Practising out in the open can sometimes lead to a happy accident, originally uploaded by Rowan Peter.

遺伝子組み換え食品との付き合いかた-GMOの普及と今後のありかたは? The way of dealing with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) now and in the future. Written by Ichiro Motoki. Photograph of page 81 from 遺伝子組み換え食品との付き合いかた-GMOの普及と今後のありかたは by Rowan Peter. Used with kind permission from Kaoru Kobayashi and Ohmsha Publishing.

“What we plan for the use of something is not necessarily how people will use it and we don’t necessarily dictate how they use it. We open it up and we hope for the best and a lot of the times we are surprised.”

This quote from Jim Groom’s February 2012 talk at Kansas State University reflects my own surprising experiences with sharing my work out in the open. My surprise came about when I was contacted by the co-author of a book seeking permission to use one of my photographs. I had taken the photograph for The Daily Shoot #ds446 – Sense of depth or dimension assignment for the Spring 2011 iteration of DS106. For me, the photograph had a single purpose. An exercise for The Daily Shoot, a record of my attempt at creating a sense of depth and dimension.

What surprised me the most was that someone wanted to use to my photograph and use it for a completely different purpose. It’s likely the friendly request to use my photograph by the co-author of the book would not have occurred if I had not been sharing my work out in the open. Sharing this way allowed my photograph to be easily discovered by others and helped to create what Alan Levine calls a potential energy for happy accidents to happen.