Category: Creative Ideas

Ideas about creativity and the creative process.

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How Not to be Creative

Fall aspen emphasizing falling leaves

You can find suggestions everywhere about how to be creative. I decided to turn it around and offer suggestions on how not to be creative. Is that creative? 🙂 I can’t guarantee that doing the opposite will make you creative, but perhaps they may be warning signs for consideration.

Creativity

We all want to be creative (I hope). But what it is? How do you define it?

We all have different views and expectations. For photography, maybe it comes down to making images that seem fresh and “different” in a good way. They say that everything has been photographed. I don’t buy that. But even if it has, there are new viewpoints or treatments or lighting on our subjects. And there are still lots of things no one has thought to photograph.

Few of us will create wholly new art genres the world has never seen. Few of us really want to. But we can do work that people look at, come back to, and admire as a whole new way of seeing a subject. We can project our feelings onto the print, giving it our unique stamp.

We often use the metaphor of the muse inspiring us to creativity. If the muse is with us we are creative. If she is not, we can’t seem to do fresh work. Yes, our creative inspiration seems to come and go; to have highs and lows. I do not believe some imaginary Greek goddesses actually have anything to do with it. It is really happening within us.

So rather than chasing after creativity, I want to look at ways to stifle the creativity we have.

Distraction

If you live in the Western world, you are probably paralyzed by distractions. Our devices and entertainment rather successfully compete for all of our time and mental bandwidth.

People open their phones dozens of times a day because of fear of missing out (FOMO). We are expected to be online and available to our employers 24/7, even when on vacation. The wonders of the internet has opened up far too many “opportunities” to spend our time and attention.

But rather than being an incredibly empowering technological aid to us, it has become the master we are slaves to. People are online at work all day then spend many hours at home doom scrolling funny cat videos or new dance moves or movies we don’t really care about.

So, a great way to subvert your creativity is to be so distracted we do not have time for original thought. Creativity requires quiet time and very limited distractions. In general, the more attention we give our phones and other devices, the less opportunity to be creative we have.

The technology is not bad in itself. I have 1G fiber and i would not want to let go of it. What we do with it is where we can hurt ourselves.

Stress

Another great creativity killer is stress. Stress focuses all of our attention on the problems we are facing.

The world always tries to keep us treading water. Just a couple of days ago my fuel pump went out, while we were driving in a hard to access location in the mountains. Do you know how long it takes and what it costs to get your car towed over Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park? And do you know what it costs to replace a fuel pump? That can peak your blood pressure.

That’s just one little example. All of us deal with many sources of stress all the time. It comes with life.

Like our devices, stress occupies all of our attention if we let it. When we are stressed and worrying, we are seldom thinking creative thoughts. It seems more survival mode.

So, to kill creativity, give in to worrying about stress. Fixate on those problems. Live with a survival mentality.

Of course, we can’t just wish our stressors away. We need to deal with them. How we deal with them is up to us. Attitude is a big deal.

Trying too hard

Want to chase away the muse? Trying too hard is a good way.

We should always be trying hard. What I mean, though, is trying to force our self to create something on our schedule. Just sitting there saying “I have to create something; now; do it; right now”. How does that work for you?

Maybe it works better for you than it does for me. If I try to force myself to be creative it seems to have the opposite effect. I am a total blank.

Actually, I can often lure creativity to visit me by ignoring it and thinking about or working on something else. I believe artistic creativity comes from the subconscious. Our minds need to be occupied with something not too demanding so our subconscious can be free to wander and think new thoughts. But then we must be conscious enough to realize what just happened and capture the idea.

Too busy

Another good way to not be creative is to be too busy. Busy with demanding tasks that occupy all our attention and mental bandwidth.

The world around us encourages a high level of busyness. What do you say when someone greets you? “How ‘ya doing?” “Man, I’m staying really busy!” It’s almost a badge of honor.

Being busy is much better than being idle. But like most things, when taken to an extreme, it can be destructive.

If you are one of those super busy people with a full calendar, how do you find time to be creative? Maybe it is as simple as doing some prioritization and putting some blocks of time in your calendar where you will let your mind relax and give yourself the space to focus on your art.

Imitation

The last creativity killer I want to talk about is imitation. Are you trying to make art like your mentor or favorite artist?

I believe this is a trap because we cannot be them. We can make work that looks a lot like theirs. But this is looking backward at what they have done in the past. We cannot be in their mind and have the same thoughts and influences that will guide them to new work. So all we can really do is copy them. That is not creative. We are not adding anything new.

Can we learn from other artists? Of course! That is how advancements are made. The critic Lionel Trilling is quoted as saying “Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.” Many others have said similar things in slightly different ways. The consistent point made is that we take what we can learn from others and add it to our own art. Just imitating them, though, is a dead end.

Conclusion

Creativity is something we all have in varying amounts. It is an enabler and motivation of being an artist. But we are surrounded by many powerful forces that want to stifle our creativity.

All the creativity sucking problems I list here are real and probably attack most of us most days. They are easy to identify but very hard to overcome.

We cannot just pretend they are not there. Instead, we have to be very aware of them and actively work to fight them. If we don’t, we will be sucked into their trap and our art will never be seen. The path of least resistance is to give in and let our creativity be choked out.

Fight!

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Another Way to Copy

Photographing a true icon - The Eiffel Tower

My previous article talked about using presets to make our work look like another artist‘s. This is going to continue talking about another way to copy another artist. Not directly or intentionally, but with the same result. That way is going to the same locations.

Trendy locations

It seems like locations are as trendy and popular with photographers as clothes styles are with some other people. Can’t you look at a lot of popular photography and score pretty well in a “guess the location” game?

Some locations get over-photographed to the point of becoming cliche. Do you get tired of seeing pictures of Iceland or Greenland or the Antarctic or Africa? A little closer to. home, how about Yosemite or the Tetons or the Palouse region or fall images from Vermont?

It is not at all that these places are not beautiful. Just that there is a herd instinct to rush to do the same thing. It seems like a photographer publishes a nice image of a fresh new location and everybody wants to follow to get, what, the same picture?

The problem of visiting iconic locations

There is nothing wrong with these locations. Absolutely not. They are iconic because they rightly deserve to be. The problem is our own and what we commonly do when we get there.

From my own experience and from reading others’ experiences it seems there is a common trap we fall into. An often photographed location causes a certain amount of awe and wonder. We see the famous image we have dreamed of and shoot it. And then we are kind of done.

Most of us can’t, on that first visit, see beyond the obvious. This is common. The location is famous and grand and set apart in our mind as this special thing. We have always seen it a certain way and we are locked into only seeing it that way.

Access is important

What is the difference between our shots of iconic locations and the, probably better, work we do routinely? One significant difference is access. I want to thank Brooks Jensen, the editor of LensWork magazine for helping me see this insight in issue 152, Editors Comments. He, in turn, was inspired by a comment of David Hurn. He proposed that the most important aspect of a potential subject is that we have access to it.

What we routinely see and shoot we become very familiar with. We become analytic in looking at it. Having the freedom to frequently return to the location gives us the opportunity to see and evaluate it in all seasons and weather and lighting conditions. From all angles and possible views. It becomes an old friend we know well. When we take a shot of it, it likely captures its true personality. We know its best side and its worst.

These familiar scenes may not be the grand locations most people think about. But we can represent them in meaningful ways, because we know them well. And we know them well because we have access to them.

Access, frequent return visits, is what builds this familiarity.

Approaching an icon

So what strategy can we use when we get the chance to visit one of the. icons? I agree with Mr. Jensen that photographing exotic locations is actually more difficult than photographing the familiar.

Don’t avoid. traveling to these places! Travel is usually worthwhile for many reasons. But perhaps we need a strategy for approaching the great locations.

I suggest that when we get there, give in and have fun shooting all the normal tourist views. These are your first impressions. Then when that is out of your system, slow down and start being more analytic. Be suspicious of the conventional scenes you just captured. Try to look beyond them. Find a new point of view you have never seen. Ask yourself how you feel about this thing or place. How you relate to it and perceive it. Why are you taking this picture? Stop and think and just look a while before proceeding.

Make it a mini photo project. That involves having a theme, a point of view, knowing what you want to say, maybe having a story behind it. You will probably find that few if any of your initial “wow, I’m here” shots make it into the final project. The important ones will be the more thoughtful views where you were interacting with the subject on a deeper level.

Go your own way

We can even use that learning to take back to the familiar subjects we see every day and have easy access to. The familiar should not be less exciting. Probably it should be more exciting, because we have the access and opportunity to get deep into the subject.

Sometimes I go out among my familiar surroundings with nothing in mind. My plan is to just react to these familiar subjects in, hopefully, a fresh way. Sometimes I go out with a project in mind, looking for opportunities to add to it. Either way works, because of the frequent and easy access I have to the material. On our home ground we have an advantage. No one else gets so much access to the subjects you are intimate with every day.

Never try to copy another artist, unless you are doing it for your education, to learn a new approach. Do not publish these as your original work. You are copying. Trust that you have a viewpoint and believe you have something to say with you work. You do.

Today’s image

No challenge guessing the location. Yes, I shoot icons. Everybody does. This was not my first visit to it, so I approached it differently. I didn’t want just another tourist shot of the famous Eiffel Tower.

After walking around it for a while, I was drawn to this composition. I felt inspired by its immense size and beautiful curves and lines. I didn’t have a wide enough angle lens to capture it in one shot, so I had to shoot multiple and manually stitch them together.

Maybe this is still a common shot of the icon, I don’t know. I don’t look at many others. But is seems different to me and I like it. It is one of my best memories of it.

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Sustainability

Watching paint run - creatively

Sustainability is a common buzz word these days. It is applied to everything. Every company and product claims it. For this, I’m going to redefine sustainability from an artistic point of view.

Creative sustainability

As artists, we live on our creativity. Do you worry that the well may dry up? What if your creativity goes away?

If we produce hard, do we use it up? Or is the engine somehow fed by using more? Is creativity a “sustainable” resource or does it get used up?

Since this is the core of what we do as artists, it is natural to worry about it. Probably all of us at some point have concerns that we may use it up. What would we do then?

So, an ongoing concern for many of us is, should we ration and conserve our creativity so we don’t use it up? Is it even possible to conserve it?

Sustainable creativity

I don’t believe creativity actually gets used up. It is like a good well that always seems to be full when we need it. If anything, creativity thrives on being challenged and used. It seems like the more we call on it, the more there is.

But is it sustainable? I think so, but we can be our own worst enemies. If we keep doing the same stuff over and over we get less creative. When we try to stay in a safe rut, there is less need to exercise creative. We’ve done it all. Many times. It is a major challenge to apply new creativity to repeating the same things.

Unless we are following the lead of where our creativity wants to take us, we risk getting stale. When that happens, we seriously fear we are not creative any more. And we are right.

That doesn’t mean our creativity is gone. But if we do not give it free rein to take us in new directions, it stops challenging us. For all practical purposes, our creativity is them used up.

Creativity is like a good friend. It will be there for us, but we have a responsibility to nurture the relationship. If we ignore it, if we do not make time for it, it will eventually give up on us.

Burnout

Everyone goes through cycles. Creativity, and everything else in life, can ebb and flow. That is natural. But burnout is an extreme. It is a depressed state where it can seem impossible to ever again do the quality of work we want to do. It can persist for months or years if we let it.

I know. I have been there. There was a time in my career when I worked long hours for years in a job that was not fulfilling. It caught up to me. I crashed. I pulled back, working less hours and not being as satisfied with the quality of my work. Eventually, by changing position and increasing the creativity of my role, I became productive and happy in my job again. It was probably a 3 year process.

In burnout, it seems evident that creativity must be unsustainable. That’s not true, though. It is not creativity that lets us down, it is the other parts of our context. It is important to manage our lives and environment if we want to stay creative.

Creative stimulus

Like an athlete trains constantly, we must exercise our creativity to stay on top of our game. Everyone’s needs are different, so it is impossible to lay out a plan for you to follow to do it. You have to figure that out for yourself.

I can provide some creative stimulants I have seen and used. Consider them. Try the ones that seem to fit you. Develop your own methods.

I will just bullet point some of them. Each could be a topic on it’s own.

Read. And not just the same old stuff. Read new things. Read things by people you disagree with. And also read some light stuff just for fun.

Study something new. Don’t plan to get a PhD in it. Just learn something about it. If you like it, go deeper. If not, try something else.

Write

Go back and review your old work. Put together a new portfolio.

Go to a museum.

Travel to a new place that is NOT a major iconic photo location.

Put blocks of time in your calendar to do nothing. Turn off your phone. Let your mind wander. Doodle. Look around. Intentionally be unproductive.

Spend time with friends, just living life.

Take your significant other out for a nice and unexpected meal.

Find things that make you happy, but that are not just entertainment. Try to do more of them.

Take walks, with and without your camera.

Just do it

The theme here is to fill your mind with new information. This connects in strange and unexpected ways, leading to who knows what. And to give yourself space and time to just think, ponder, consider, unwind. The more pressure we put ourselves under, the more it shuts down creativity.

And like the inspired Nike tag line, “just do it”. Get out and work. Take pictures, Don’t worry so much about the results. Going through the motions is comforting and leads to results. Eventually. Creativity is not just inspiration, it is a process.

Relax and try to de-clutter your head. Follow your instincts.

Is creativity sustainable? I would say definitely. It is one of the most important traits we have as artists. We can consciously take actions to keep our creativity healthy and flowing. But we have to listen to ourselves and recognize what our needs are.

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Out of Context

Packed with story

Every image has a context, the setting or framework or circumstances where it was created. Sometimes we try to tell the context to our viewers. But really, aren’t most images viewed out of context?

The setting

Every traditional photographic image has a context. It was created someplace, about someone or something, for some purpose. That is an inescapable reality. Photography records the world around us. But how important is it for an artist to bring the context to the viewer?

If I am showing you street photography, it might help to tell you the country I’m in. That may help frame the culture, architecture, people we’re seeing. But, say I’m shooting in the USA for an American audience. Does it really matter if it is in New York City, or Cincinnati, or Seattle, or Dallas? You look at the image and try to read the subject and deduce what the scene means to you.

Context in this case is supplied from a shared cultural experience. We all know enough of what it is like in a large American city to understand the image.

Or for a landscape, if it is an interesting picture, does it really matter if it is the Colorado mountains instead of the Sierras, or the Maine coast as opposed to the Oregon coast? The impact of the picture is what intrigues us.

The story

And about story, we are told repeatedly that we must tell a story in an image or a project. I struggle with this. Somewhere I missed the training to understand this. Or I read too much into what “story” means.

One legacy of growing up as an Engineer is I start out thinking fairly literally about a proposition. To me a story has character development, conflict, and resolution. What writers call the story arc.

Personally, I don’t think many images tell much of a story unless they are about people. Even then, when we see a person we are compelled to figure out or create a story to explain what we see them doing, or their expression, or gesture. Regardless of the artist’s intent.

But I seldom present images of people. To me, a landscape or an old rusty truck or an abstract motion blur doesn’t tell a story. If it does, the story would be something like “pretty” or “gritty” or “interesting shapes”. Is that actually a story? That seems weak.

My inclination is to say most images do not, by themselves, tell a story. But they might provide enough structure for the viewer to invoke whatever memories or meanings they want. To create a story for themselves.

Do we have to supply the story?

As artists, we often feel compelled to write the story and present it to our viewer to help understand the image. Or, more likely, a gallery requires us to do it. Sometimes that is successful. If they actually take the time to read it. Maybe for a photo project people will read the artist statement summarizing the intent of the project. Maybe.

Even if viewers read a title, they tend to make up their own story about what the image is. Is that bad? I don’t think so. It is their story. If they are happy with it, great. I sometimes ask viewers to tell me what they are thinking when they see one of my images. Often I am surprised. Sometimes they are far off of what I saw and felt or what the image is actually “about”. Their story may be completely outside the context of the “real” image. But they are not wrong, because this is what they experienced. I believe the best art leaves room for varying interpretation.

I know that a well written story sometimes adds a lot of context to an image. But part of me thinks a strong image should stand on its own. If I have to explain it, it is lacking impact. A type of exception I often see is a project like Cole Thompson’s Ghosts of Auschwitz. His images are strong and impactful by themselves, but a few words taking you to the context of where they were taken and what he was feeling makes it a deeper experience.

Maybe the story is already there

What I’m about to say goes against all the conventional wisdom we normally hear. Maybe we do not write the story. Perhaps, in general, the scene is already telling its story. We see it, recognize it, frame and compose it, and try to help it tell its story in the best way we can. But it is its story, not ours. Maybe we give ourselves too much credit.

If this is true, maybe we are documenters more than creators. This aligns with an interesting statement Ben Willmore makes when he says that in composing a scene we should reduce the negatives and enhance the positives. Doing that does not really change the story. Maybe we can slant the story some and write some of our own vision into it.

I am not minimizing the creativity and skill needed to make a good image. Not at all. I know it is exceptionally hard and I wrestle with it every day. I’m just suggesting that maybe we are not actually writing the story. Rather, we are helping our subject tell its own story. Maybe our job sometimes is to recognize the story that is already there and help to bring it to life.

In isolation

This idea carries over into viewing an image. When we view an image in a gallery or on the wall or online, we are typically seeing it in isolation. A gallery may provide a title and perhaps even a short statement posted on the wall next to the image. People may or may not read it.

Does that matter? Once an image is printed and hanging on a wall, it is complete in itself. When someone looks at it, their appraisal or appreciation of it does not need to be tied to my knowledge of the context or its meaning to me. The image tells its own story, or it does not.

I actually love to provide an image that raises more questions than it gives answers. It would be a joy to me for someone to buy it and hang it on their wall at home and pause over it every time they see it. For them to feel free to create varying stories to fit it. When they are showing it to friends I want then to say “today I see…”.

When they buy the print I could give them a written description of what it is, the context where it was created, and what it meant to me. But then it is all my story. Isn’t that taking away some of their joy and creativity in participating in the art?

An image exists

So if we typically see images by themselves, that means when a viewer takes the time to look at it, the print has to be strong enough to “tell it’s own story”. Or at least to tell a story to them. It must be able to communicate something meaningful to the viewer. Perhaps its job is to connect to memories or to raise interesting questions that make people want to live with it.

If we have to use words to complete the image, maybe it is not strong enough. The words can supplement the effect, but they should not be required to make us see it as a good image.

Context could be important, but usually we should not push it too hard. As artists, we should not be so arrogant as to believe the viewers will or should internalize the context and meaning we intended. Part of their appreciation can be to make their own stories. As an artist I have created this image, but I have to send it our on its own to make its place in the world.

Today’s image

To me, this image has a lot of story. But who wrote the story? Not really me. I saw it, and stopped and took the time to frame it and compose it and narrow in to what I thought the story was. Then I edited it some, not altering any important components.

I can’t honestly say “look at this great story I told”. No, I found a story already existing and tried to put a little of my touch on it to bring it to you.

Would knowing the context make this a better story? Or would it interfere with you discovering your own story?

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Outside the Frame

You are directed out of the frame to complete the story.

The frame is one of the most important aspects of our images. I’m referring to the edge, the border, not what may or may not surround the outside of a print as it hangs on a wall. Sometimes part of the storytelling is to suggest our viewers think about what is happening outside the frame.

The frame

The frame or border around our image is a powerful component of our design. An image is created within a frame. The frame defines the extent and what is included. The frame also defines what is excluded.

This is one of the unique and beautiful things about photography. A painter starts with a blank canvas and is free to include anything he wants for his image. No limits. And if he doesn’t want something, just don’t put it in. The photographer knows that everything in the field of view of the lens is recorded in his image when the shutter opens.

So a photograph is constructed by deliberately deciding what is included and what is excluded and what the viewpoint on them is. Unless you are constructing a still life or compositing images together. My focus here is on natural scenes.

It’s a dance with the frame. It’s a succession of tradeoffs and optimizations. The result is the artist’s unique viewpoint.

The edges

Magic happens at the edges. Most of the standard “rules” of composition are relative to the frame. For instance, the famous “rule of thirds” is relative to the frame edges. Leading lines come in from the edge. Diagonals are diagonal because of their relationship to the frame.

And how often has someone advised you to look carefully for things poking in from the edge of the frame. They tend to be distracting, because things near the edge of the frame are powerful. As you become experienced it is an automatic action to scan the edges to check for these elements.

The famous Jay Maisel rightly said: “You are responsible for every part of your image, even the parts you’re not interested in.” This seems especially true around the edges of the frame.

It’s kind of a paradox. Small elements at the edge are distracting. But large features projecting well into the frame are strong design elements.

A window on the world

So then our frame is our window on the world. The image is the projection within the frame. We are trained to compose carefully within the frame. To make sure the image is self-contained. Anything outside the frame is unknown. It doesn’t exist.

Or does it?

Imagining the unseen

Have you ever considered using things outside the frame as a design element? Is that even possible?

Think of a repeating pattern within the frame. If it is not stopped before the edge, we assume it continues. This brings up questions, like does it actually continue? How far does it go?

Or perhaps you consciously include a shadow coming in the edge of the frame. It can raise questions about what is the thing, is it about to come in, what will happen when it does?

Have you ever intentionally had someone or something leaving the frame? It can raise questions about why, where is it going? What will happen outside? Why is this composed this way?

Ever shoot an image with the subject looking out of the frame? It raises lots of questions with the viewer. We try to analyze the person’s expression and figure out if they are looking at something amazing, or startled, or apprehensive. Is something scary coming? We want to know.

Another example is shooting a tight section of something and leaving the rest to your imagination. We probably know what the overall thing looks like and we start filling is the rest in our mind.

Today’s image

You want to know who he is talking to. It seems to be a happy moment. We wonder what the conversation is. You want to join in the moment, so you make up your own story about what is going on. All because we are directed out of the frame to complete the scene.

The frame is a strong component of the composition of our images. We are very careful to arrange things within the frame. But it does not have to fully constrain our world. Sometimes leaving the outside of the frame as a suggestion to tweak the viewer’s imagination can be powerful.