Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: creativity

  • Inspiration

    Inspiration

    Inspiration, or lack of it, is a fear and concern for almost all artists. If we’re not feeling inspiration right now we fear we’ve dried up and our days as an artist are past. If we’re awash in inspiration we may feel overwhelmed.

    I’m mostly going to discuss the lack of inspiration, since that is what we typically fear.

    Be open

    If “the muse”, or whatever your view of inspiration is, doesn’t seem to be hanging out with you, what can you do? My experience is be patient and spend your time wisely while you’re waiting.

    Open yourself to stimulus. Take a walk. Read a book. Watch a training video. Look at another artist’s web site and/or blog. Visit museums or galleries. All these things can energize you and refresh your spirit. We are all different in our makeup, so what works for me might not work for you. That’s OK. Keep trying things until you find something that pumps you up.

    Creativity exercises

    When your “normal” work doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, it’s a great time to do some of those personal projects you have wanted to get to for a long time. Do something different. Something outside of your normal style or subject matter.

    It’s a complete no risk venture. If you decide it is a complete failure, fine. Now you know. Write that one off and try another. Jay Maisel once said “If it’s not working, go have a good glass of wine and then try something else.” But if you love the results maybe you have learned something new about yourself. Maybe it will stretch you and even take you in a new direction. Doing something is better than doing nothing.

    If you are a traditional landscape photographer, try something like street photography. It will be so different that it will make you reevaluate a lot of things. If nothing else it should be refreshing.

    Do you pride yourself in tack sharp, crunchy, high detail shots? Great. I love that, too. But spend some time doing blurred images. Do handhelds at slow shutter speeds, even introducing intentional camera motion. No, really. Try it. You may see whole new opportunities and new creative possibilities.

    I have talked before about exercises like going out with one lens. Give it a try. It forces a new thought process on your creativity. You will have to reevaluate some things about your composition and style. Some of them may influence changes. But even if not, it is something fresh and different that may energize you.

    A sense of wonder

    My work is strongly influenced by a sense of wonder towards the world around me. Honestly, sometimes I don’t feel it. The wonder and inspiration is gone. What can I do? I can’t make interesting images if I don’t feel excited about things.

    One thing is to give myself permission to acknowledge that I’m in a slump. I am very lucky to be what is called a “fine art” creator. As such, I don’t have to perform on schedule. Clients do not contract me to create something to their specification at a certain time.

    That is not accidental. I spent a long career working for other people and having to be driven by external demands. When the opportunity came, I re-molded my life to give myself freedom. I realize this may not be possible for you, but I’m being honest about my situation and the options I have.

    Giving myself permission to not have to create takes a lot of pressure off, but not all. I really don’t like not feeling wonder. It is frustrating and sometimes scary. I get impatient, wanting to move on NOW. Part of what I have realized is that patience has to be balanced with action.

    Confidence to wait

    Over many years of experience, I have learned that inspiration will return. It is important to develop the confidence that you are creative and that the feelings will return, probably even better than before.

    If you were creative in the past it did not just get used up. Creativity is not a fixed quantity that you exhaust. It is a skill and an attribute of our wondrous minds. But life is cyclic. You have ups and downs. sometimes you have to just “hunker down” and ride it out. That implies being content to wait, to be patient. You can do that if you believe it will come back.

    I believe there are things we can do to open us up to allow the creativity to flow again, but we cannot force it. If we try to force it we will get frustrated and disappointed and afraid. It will seem like the more we try to make it happen the further away it is from us.

    Giving yourself permission to not have to do the greatest work of your career today does not mean sit and not do anything. Action is important.

    Put in the reps

    As I said earlier, I believe there are useful things we can do to open ourselves to feeling the inspiration again. Things like going for walks or going to museums or looking at the work of other artists. And creativity exercises can help to stimulate our subconscious.

    But a simple and often overlooked thing is to “just do it”. Practice, practice, practice. Put in your reps. Don’t worry if you are not producing masterpieces. A great basketball player will spend hours a day in the gym just shooting baskets and practicing layups. That is not “game level” intensity. But it trains the muscles to do the right thing. That builds confidence and mastery over time.

    At this point, though, don’t overthink the problem. That will make you freeze up. Let it work itself out. I often quote Jay Maisel. One of his quips is “Don’t overthink things in front of you. If it moves you, shoot it. If it’s fun, shoot it. If you’ve never seen it before, shoot it.”

    Magic happens

    I find that when I make myself get out and do something, it is like the basketball player who can do well in the game because he did the practice. For me, the click of the camera shutter is a kind of magic. It is a sound I subconsciously associate with creativity and making images. Things often start to flow, even when I did not feel “in the mood” going out. Even if they don’t, it is good for me to be out practicing.

    So inspiration is not the end all. No inspiration does not necessarily mean just sitting in our room moping. Get up, get out, do something. If you are moving and taking action you are much more likely to start feeling inspiration. You don’t have to do your best work every day.

    To close with another Jay Maisel quote: “If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it.”

    How do you deal with slumps of no inspiration? Let’s talk!

  • Copying

    Copying

    Most people would say that copying is wrong. They would acknowledge it as plagiarism or even intellectual property theft. Yet successful things are usually copied. This could be visual art or books or products or fashion or almost anything. Less creative people copy the work of more creative ones.

    I’m not going into the plagiarism issues except to say that reproducing someone else’s art as your own without attribution or acknowledgment is always wrong. Give credit to the originator.

    Copy to learn

    We generally start out copying artists we admire. This helps us to perfect our craft and analyze how they created the work. We can study their composition and lighting and equipment choices and editing to see the decisions a good artist made. It is educational and can be enlightening. When you are learning something new I recommend copying examples you admire at first.

    Don’t stay here. It should be a learning experience that you quickly move on from.

    Studying and even copying other artists helps you build your mental catalog of scenes, ideas, tips, how-to tricks, possibilities, and aesthetics. They are all parts of the wonderfully complex experience of developing your own style. Your style will contain elements of other artist’s styles, but only pieces. Not a direct copy.

    Don’t copy, steal

    Picasso famously said “good artists copy, great artists steal“. Steve Jobs also quoted this frequently. It is believed Picasso meant that a good artist will only copy what someone else did but a great artists will adopt (steal) the parts that resonate with him and incorporate it in his own art.

    This gets at the myth of creativity that deludes many people. The reality is that there is little true creativity in the world. Anything we create builds on things we have seen other people do. Accept that. Use it to your advantage by being more open about stealing bits from others. How you modify it or combine it with other ideas is what makes it your own.

    I struggle with cynicism, but the idea that there is little true creativity is comforting. It takes off the pressure to feel like I have to come up with something so “out there” that nothing like it has ever been seen in the world. I can’t do that regularly. I don’t think many can.

    However, I can be quite happy with an occasional “wow”. If I can surprise and sometimes delight myself and my viewers, that is enough. That is creativity.

    Who do you want to be?

    Don’t waste time trying to be someone else. When we copy, we are just being a pale shadow of them. It is not really us. What audience are you trying to win praise from? The only praise that really counts is our own.

    Is this egotistical? Maybe. But at some level all artists are egotistical, because we feel we have something worth sharing with the world. I believe that if you don’t love what you are doing you will not persist in trying to share it. Being an artist is hard enough. If you don’t really believe in what you are doing, then why do it?

    I love the story Cole Thompson shares about the hurtful critique he got that changed his life. Please forgive me for copying it here, but it is some of the best advice I’ve ever heard:

    During the last review of a very long day, the reviewer quickly looked at my work, brusquely pushed it back to me and said “It looks like you’re trying to copy Ansel Adams.”  I replied that I was, because I loved his work! He then said something that would change my life:

    “Ansel’s already done Ansel and you’re not going to do him any better.  What can you create that shows your unique vision?”

    Those words really stung, but the message did sink in: Was it my life’s ambition to be known as the world’s best Ansel Adams imitator? Had I no higher aspirations than that?

    How about you (or me)? Who are we trying to be the world’s best imitator of?

    Much more satisfying to be yourself

    I’ve been there and I am thankful that I have grown beyond it. I am completely my own person now. I look at other artists work with admiration, and with an eye to steal the ideas that resonate with me. But I am not interested in copying them. It would give me no pleasure.

    I will not be satisfied in being an imitation of someone else. I will proudly present my own art. My own point of view. Whether or not it is accepted and regarded by others I can take comfort in knowing this is me. This is my vision. It is who I am.

    So if you are copying other artists, fine. Learn from it and never present it as your creation. But move on and get to the place where you can take all those bits you have stolen from others, process them and your ideas through your own mind and spirit, and bring out something new, because it is you. You will be much happier with the result.

  • One Lens

    One Lens

    We photographers often lug around so much stuff it ends up getting in our way and hampering our creativity. Let me recommend occasionally challenging ourselves to try a minimalist approach. Start with sometimes only going out with one lens and one camera body. One lens? Are you serious?

    Yes. Some interesting things can happen if you really go with it. You learn to see in new ways.

    Which lens?

    Does it matter what lens you use? I don’t know. But probably not. The exercise is about discipline and mental training. Don’t take a 14-400 mm lens (does such a thing exist?) to make sure all your options are covered.

    Just pick a good lens. When is the last time you used that 50mm prime? Yeah. Mine is usually not even in my camera bag. That is one reason it is a good one to choose for this exercise. For many of us, our lowly, unappreciated 50mm may be our sharpest lens. Just because it doesn’t cost a lot doesn’t mean it’s not good. These lenses are usually excellent.

    The image with this post was taken on a “50mm-only” hike. I’m sure I would have framed the scene a little different if I had my normal zoom, but this made me think. And I like it. 🙂

    The lens is not the key, though. If you have a telephoto eye then a 70-200mm might be the answer. Better yet, maybe a fixed 105mm if you have one.

    Limit yourself

    Limit yourself?? That seems absurd. After all, as creatives we do everything we can to remove limits. To envision new things. To create.

    Much good art happens as a result of exploring the limits of a medium. If we walk around festooned with multiple camera bodies and several lenses we definitely are not about limits. We’ve got everything covered. We are confident we can always get any shot we see, right from where we are standing. That is, if we can get the tripod set up and figure out which lens to use and get it installed in time before the moment is gone.

    But if we limit our self to one lens a different mindset happens. If you’re really in the game you quickly learn to visualize the field of view the lens sees. Now we start to reframe the composition process. We work to the limits of the lens we have instead of picking the one we want to use at the moment. Now we begin to be drawn to scenes appropriate for what we have. Eric Kim says “By limiting your field of view, you are forced to capture reality into your limited frame in an interesting and novel way.”

    Limitations can actually be very creative and enabling. The composition isn’t right from here, move. Yes, actually use your feet as a composition tool. Can’t take that shot because it requires a super telephoto? Don’t bother with it. Find a better shot that works with what you have. You quickly adapt to screening out the “not applicable” things and zeroing in on things that will work. It can be quite freeing and creative.

    Get out of your comfort zone

    One of the benefits of the exercise is that it gets you out of your comfort zone. Things that get you out of your comfort zone are usually useful. They may be uncomfortable (hence the name), but they can help us to see and perceive better. As artists I believe we owe it to ourselves to push the limits and try new things.

    One very uncomfortable question is “what if?” What if I used a wide angle instead of a telephoto? What if I used a long exposure instead of freezing the action? What if I got down low and shot up to this subject? I’ve only got a 50mm lens, how can I creatively capture this subject? These kinds of explorations help us to break habits of always approaching shots a predetermined way. Consciously forcing ourselves to look at things differently is very healthy.

    See with new eyes

    This is what this is all about. Seeing with new eyes is part of what is required to be creative. We have to put things in perspective – usually a new perspective. Walk around it to see another side. Take a different viewpoint. Change the lighting. Change our approach to capturing images. As artists we owe it to ourselves and our viewers to bring something dynamic and interesting to our images. I believe we have to always be looking for new paths, new insights.

    Stretching ourselves is always good, if we learn from it. Just like stretching and flexibility exercises are good for our bodies. They keep us fit and slow down the effects of aging. Creative exercises to stretch our mind and vision is at least as beneficial. Our bodies will age regardless but our minds can be sharp until the day we die.

    But a challenge here is to learn from it. We get stretched by things that happen to us but we tend to shrug them off and try to get back to normal ASAP. But it is useful to ask what can we learn and change in our lives? It is healthy to force ourselves to stretch.

    In the same way, an exercise like restricting yourself to one lens is a mental exercise, creativity training. It can stretch us and help us get new insight on our vision. And you will appreciate not carrying so much stuff. That in itself is freeing.

  • Pre-Visualization

    Pre-Visualization

    For many people, one of the fundamentals of the craft of photography has been pre-visualization. This simply means that before exposing the image you have worked out the exposure and what mood and effect you want to capture and how you plan to process it.

    I’m going to push back on this idea. My premise is that pre-visualization is no longer as important as it was in film days.

    Ansel did

    Yes, Ansel Adams was a big proponent of pre-visualization. He said “the term [pre]visualization refers to the entire emotional-mental process of creating a photograph, and as such, is one of the most important concepts in photography”.

    I think he got a little carried away here. He is veering into mystical/religious experience. The reality is that, because of the technology of the time, he had to pre-visualize carefully to get good results.

    Think about it, he was shooting film – no immediate preview. He was shooting black & white – he used strong filters to change the tonal arrangement, and he had to anticipate the result mostly based on experience. Negatives had to be developed and this introduced ranges of contrast choices that couldn’t be seen until after the fact. And then there was reciprocity failure that required compensation for long exposures – something those of us shooting digital don’t even know about. His negatives had to be fairly low contrast to try to capture as much information as possible so he could spend hours in the darkroom creating a final print. He generally exposed pretty conservatively to make sure he got something to work with.

    All this made it critical to him to plan out exposures and filter sets and contrast ranges as much as possible without actually being able to see the result. Everything had to be carefully done to capture a decent negative for processing back in the darkroom. Hence, a strong need for “pre-visualization”.

    Ansel and some of his associates even developed the famous “zone system” as part of pre-visualization. It divided the world into an 11 stop range from black to white. In normal practice, they pre-planned where the significant tones would end up after development and printing. This was part of the process of trying to make a useful negative at capture time.

    Fast forward

    We live is a very different world. Shooting digital, we can see a preview image and its histogram immediately. We know what we captured.

    And our modern digital sensors are incredible pieces of technology. Despite what Moose Peterson famously says in some of his videos, we can capture a dynamic range of about 14 stops, with a “useful” range of around 8 stops. That is a game changer. And if that is not enough it has never been easier to use high dynamic range (HDR) to capture about as much as you could want.

    For those of us still doing black & white – I love b&w and do it a lot – it is the best time in history to practice this. Very few people actually shoot in b&w, e.g. have their cameras physically modified to remove the Bayer color filter. Instead we capture full color images and use the fantastic post processing capabilities we have on our computers to do the conversion and tone mapping. But we don’t have to pre-visualize the tone effects we will get because we can non-destructively play with a wide range of effects to work out what we like. And we see in real time what we are getting. Ansel would have killed for this.

    Post pre-visualization

    John Paul Caponigro has said “Digital allows us to get away from pre-visualization and get back to visualization.” What does it mean? How can it be?

    My take on this is that we are much freer now to let our creativity run wild. Unlike previous generations of photographers we have immediate viewing of our images and non-destructive editing for post-processing. Every frame can be a different ISO speed. It doesn’t cost much or usually take much time to shoot a bracket of images to make sure we get a good original.

    And now, instead of huddling in the dark smelling strong chemicals, we can sit at our computer with a nice glass of wine and interpret an image however we want. The range of options is staggering. There are far fewer limits now. It’s a good time to be a photographer!

    This plays directly to the imaging style I love. In the field I can be in the moment. As long as I am making good captures I don’t have to have worked out in detail exactly what I am going to do with each image. I am free to treat the processing as an almost completely separate creative act. The raw image can be modified in ways Ansel never dreamed of.

    If you can get to the Luminous Landscape web site Alain Briot has a good discussion of this topic.

    Getting a good capture

    Pre-visualization is much less important now as long as we capture as much data as possible. Get a well formed histogram. Expose to the right where possible to avoid noise. Use appropriate technique for sharpness and detail.

    Capturing good images is still an art form. It is just my personal values, but pointing your camera at a scene and saying you will crop a good image out of it later and “Photoshop out” clutter is sloppy thinking and lazy. I believe I should decide what the subject is and create the best composition when I am taking the picture.

    Being an artist includes being a good craftsman.

    Wonders of post processing tools

    Pre-visualization is not as important because of the wonders that can be done now in post. I do not agree with the philosophy that “if it doesn’t work in color make it black & white”. But it is true that the decision does not have to be make up front. That is the point. I can make an artistic decision later when I determine the look I want for the image. I did not have to put a red filter on the lens or carefully place the tones on a zone scale. That can all be done in post processing. It’s great!

    Darkroom work was sort of the dirty little secret of photographers way back. They would labor for many hours to coerce a good print out of a negative. We might still spend hours post processing, but we are probably playing with alternate looks and having a lot of fun with the image.

    Free your spirit

    I am telling you my interpretation and what works for me. I believe we have been liberated from the detailed planning that was necessary in the film days. Now imaging is a more fluid and artistic medium. Pixels are data. Data can be processed many ways and to different degrees.

    It is not uncommon for me to see something completely different in an image at post than I felt in the field. This is one of the joys of being an artist today. I am free, creativity can flow, I am not tightly constrained by what I planned at capture time.

    I encourage you to not be burdened by a literal concept of pre-visualization. Do your best creative and technical work when you are capturing images and then feel free to decide how you really feel when you process them. Give yourself permission to follow your instincts and take each image where you want to go.

  • Indoor Time

    Indoor Time

    During the times when going out to shoot is difficult or impossible, you can still use your indoor time to develop your creativity and refine some critical skills for your photography practice. Just being indoors should not mean we are shut down. We can claim this indoor time as a opportunity to build ourselves up.

    Forced indoor time

    A reality today is than many are locked indoors with few opportunities to get outside. What are you doing with this new found time? When this virus started nearly a year ago I bet most of us had all kinds of upbeat plans for self-improvement activities. We could make a significant dent on our reading list, learn a new language, catch up on years of photo filing, use that rusting exercise bike, etc. How’s that working out for you?

    After we got bored and depression set in we have probably gained a few pounds, played too many hours of video games, and binged on Amazon Prime. Time to make a New Year resolution to take back control of our attitude and refocus on our art.

    It’s not too late. The opportunities are still there. Get off the couch and start working that list again. Remember your earlier resolve. Just because you’re indoors doesn’t mean you brain is shut off.

    Bad weather

    Weather is another factor that shuts some of us indoors. I live in Colorado. Winters here can get rather cold and snowy. But that is cyclic. It happens every year. I plan it into my week. I may get out and walk less, but I get out. Maybe I don’t travel as much, but I still do some.

    A reality for me is that bad weather creates opportunity for some of the types of images I really like. Things on the edge or extreme: the edge of a storm, a raging blizzard, ominous clouds. These are things most sane people do not go out to see. I do. What does that say?

    It’s cold at times, but I can dress for it. There might be some pain, but that is life. If a certain amount of pain is a cost of getting images that please me. I’m willing. And I find that when I come back in, with my fingers aching and my beard covered over with ice, I am happy. I am proud that I made myself do it. I feel better about myself and invigorated. There is the satisfaction that I went out and tried instead of sitting at home telling myself the weather was too bad to get out.

    Let me disclaim that I have many years of experience doing this, I get pretty good clothes for the climate, I have a good 4 wheel drive, and I carry proper emergency equipment. Don’t jump off a cliff without looking.

    Seek ideas

    OK, you’re stuck inside. How can you pursue your art? Maybe you can’t be making your images right now, but you can be getting ready to hit it strong when you can. Browse other artist’s sites. (Sorry, blatant plug.) Be amazed at their work and gather inspiration to weave into your style. Not to copy but to motivate new ideas.

    Look, too, for interviews and discussions with artists. These are more prevalent these days because so many of us are feeling very isolated. Artists, among others, are are starting to reach out more to build community. Some are inspiring and motivating.

    Seriously consider online training, like KelbyOne or Creative Live. It costs a few bucks, but really, less than a Netflix subscription. And they are more valuable to your career. Or there are many sources of free videos, such as B&H Explora. The Learn Photography section has an amazing amount of material. Their series on Understanding Exposure is very good.

    And of course You Tube has more photography videos than you could watch in a lifetime. For free. There are valuable ones if you can find them. Your mileage may vary.

    Focus on skill building

    A specific suggestion is to focus on improving your post processing skills during this time. Most of us could use more depth in Lightroom or Photoshop or your tool of choice. This is a great opportunity.

    “For photographers, Adobe Photoshop is still the gold standard of editing applications, and the one to which all others are compared. And even if you’re not a Photoshop user, its omnipresence almost acts like the foundation of a communal language from which to talk about editing photos in general.” – Bjorn Petersen

    Yes, love them or hate them, Lightroom and Photoshop are the basis of a shared cultural experience for photographers worldwide. It is useful to know whether or not you use it.

    The sources I mention above have a lot of good training for this. And you have extra time now for practice and experimentation. That is a great benefit. This new information should be used to build competence. A lot of repetition is necessary before they are ready to be incorporated into your workflow.

    It is not a skill until you can actually do it. The more familiar and experienced you are with your craft, the easier and more fun it becomes. It can be a valuable goal to decide to come out of this with an improved workflow and ability to better craft your art.

    Opportunity

    Opportunity is there. It is always there. My glass has been half empty for too long. I am trying to re-frame my viewpoint. I’m done with the “poor me” attitude.

    The same opportunities are still there. Turn off the TV and Facebook and remember what your creativity is pushing you to do. Start with one little thing. Something you would enjoy and can do in an hour or less. Do it. Now you have accomplished something. Celebrate! Use that to build momentum. Keep going.

    This indoor time is too valuable to waste. Use it wisely.

    Some photographers who inspire me (in random order):

    Cole Thompson

    Fran Forman

    John Paul Caponigro

    Julieanne Kost

    Ctein

    John Shaw

    Ben Willmore (Ben is also a master Photoshop and Lightroom trainer)

    Lorri Freedman

    Karen Hutton

    Jay Maisel