WHY I LAUNCHED THE CC
The Crystal capture started as a hashtag, because I’m a marketer & can’t shake a good alliteration. Also because I needed an outlet at the height of the pandemic & a reason to dust off my digital folder of travel photos — to remind myself of my decades-long love for creating & that I once had a life on the outside.
It was a dark time.
The phrase was intended to be literal, implying that the photos were captured by me, Crystal. I developed a series on the topic of light, inspired by the meaning of photography as light-writing. One could argue the word ‘series’ was a bit of a stretch, considering I was posting maybe twice a month & the photos hardly read as a series in real time. It all felt a bit ridiculous. Were the posts meaningful to anyone?
I am someone & it was meaningful to me.
So in the grasp for some semblance of sanity during lockdown, I held tightly to the raft of my creativity, shocked by its buoyancy after I’d spent years relegating it to the fringes of my life.
That was a nudge to revisit the idea for this site from the ghost of notebooks past. Despite my attempts to rationalize the idea away, I had already said too much to the OG friends of mine who would hold me accountable. It took every bit of the last two & a half years to begin shifting my mindset, out of spreadsheets & single breasted blazers, to start valuing & doing the things I love most. Following this creative pull felt, at worst, capricious — but I couldn’t ignore that it made me happy.
That’s why we’re here.
Today, the Crystal capture is much more than a literal reference to my work behind the lens. It’s a commitment to nurture my inner creative kid — a way of life that centers curiosity & finds art under the guise of the everyday.
x Crystal
The post that started #theCrystalcapture