Find your inner Bruce Marigold

I want to introduce you to Bruce Marigold. (We’ll get to David later).

Bruce is a pen name my husband has invented for a script he really wanted to write, but with which he didn’t initially want his name associated. (Oh damn- there goes that secret).

He wanted to be completely free to explore an idea and was a little worried about his reputation; so he invented Bruce Marigold. Every time my hubby finds himself, pen poised, worrying if he can or should write something, he asks ‘ What would Bruce do?’

Bruce breaks rules, pushes boundaries and behaves a little inconsiderately. He is the writer without a conscience; a little mad, a little reckless. He certainly doesn’t care about what potential clients would think, let alone reputation. He might upset his audience, use profanities, make crazy things happen or, God forbid, write in the wrong format.

Of course, Bruce also writes more creatively. Like Ganesh the elephant he is the remover of obstacles. He crushes boundaries and removes unwanted parameters. Like Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie’s alter ego, he can dress wildly, play God and visit earth as an alien.

OK I know you hate writing. Well probably. (If you’re a photographer the chance is very high). But when you’re thinking about your next photography project, why not create an alter ego or Nom de Plume?

Find your own Bruce Marigold and create photography magic. Push boundaries, make mistakes, experiment, be who you want to be, or only dream of being, and when you find yourself worrying what your usual audience would think, ignore it because you’ll have your very own disguise.

My daughter (yes, creativity is in the family) created a fun band with a friend last year whilst she worked on her own album. ‘New Dawn’ girls wear purple kaftans, breathe energy greetings to Astral Nomads from their Facebook page, and broke all the rules of good production by whipping up an album in a day to share with their followers.

What’s amazing is within a month they were being interviewed on the National Radio programme in NZ (and the interview was subsequently picked as one of the favourites of the year), a distributor offered them a contract for their first release, and they are booked for gigs around the country.

Ultimately, your Bruce Marigold, like my husband’s, may evaporate in the same way as the imaginary friend you had when you were a kid.  You may be proud of what you made. Gosh, it might even become what you are famous for. Or infamous- but who cares?

Whatever the outcome you’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain by being truly, authentically creative, with no restraints. What’s your photographer Nom de plume going to be?