Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: creativity

Chasing Trophies
I’ve come to wonder about people whose goal is to win prizes or duplicate famous shots. What is their reason for shooting? Is there a joy in recreating a shot someone already did? What motivates you? Are you satisfying your personal vision or chasing a trophy in a competition?
Prizes, rewards
I have to admit I used to chase prizes. Back when I was involved in my local camera club we had monthly competitions. Usually with a defined subject. I would spend hours thinking about the target subject, planning shots, and executing them. I must say that I got good at winning blue ribbons (I have a stack of them in my basement).
There was a discipline to this that was good training. Those days were not wasted. For anyone wanting to be a commercial or portrait photographer this is good exercise. I believe we had an exceptional camera club that generally did a lot of good.
But I got to a point where my vision went a different direction. One problem with our club or any organization that is “judging” art is that it has a culture and value system that narrowly filters out work that does not conform to their norm. Whether this is a local club or an international competition it looks to me like this is true.
So in our local club, I quickly learned what would place well and taught myself how to win. I am ashamed to admit that I helped perpetuate the culture by spending years as a judge critiquing other entrants and helping inculcate them. The day I was the first to win a blue ribbon with a heavily Photoshopped image was a time of soul searching for them and me. I decided I was going my own way and following my vision regardless of their likes and dislikes.
Recreate great images
Many people seem to see popular or well known images as a pattern or template they feel they should use. I have seen people researching where and when certain images were made. They want to know what equipment the artist used and how they processed the image. All with the goal, seemingly, of going out and shooting the same image.
Why?
That image has already been done. You may, at a chance, do it better, but it is still a copy. It is another artist’s work that you imitated.
Maybe imitation is the most sincere type of flattery, but it does not help the imitator. You are not using your creativity to make wonderful new works. You are not showing the world what you see. I suspect that people doing this feel that they do not have sufficient creativity or vision to come up with their own unique work, so they copy other artists.
An exception
Every rule has at least one exception. That is a good reason to avoid rules.
In 1998 Colorado photographer John Fielder began a major project to recreate many of the famous Colorado images of William Henry Jackson from the 19th century. He drove 25,000 miles and hiked 500 miles to locate each Jackson image – 156 in Vol 1 – and stand in exactly the same spot as Jackson to create a parallel image of what the scene looks like now.
In this case, Fielder was a well established photographer with his own vision and a huge, respected body of work. This project was creative and historical, documenting the changes that had taken place in a little over 100 years. Fielder could not be accused of being imitative. It has become the most popular Colorado regional book of all time.
Few of us are is the same position. If you are working on a project of this significance, good for you and best of luck. I would never imply that it is being an imitator.
Guided tours
I have heard photographers bragging that they offer guided tours to take clients to famous spots to recreate well known images. Really?
I can’t fault them for trying to make a buck if clients will pay for it. It is plenty hard to support yourself as a landscape or fine art photographer and any sources of income are welcome.
What I can’t believe is that customers will pay to be guided to these locations and told how to recreate these scenes. At the end, maybe they had a fun outing, but they have a bunch of imitation shots. These are somebody else’s work. The person who took the tour is kind of a passive tool, basically like a camera that somebody else is manipulating.
Wouldn’t it be better to be inspired by these great pictures and use that as motivation to go create your own unique work? Be yourself. Express your own vision.
Workshops can be a great experience. The right instructor can do wonders to educate and motivate you. I would stay away from template formats, where the instructor is trying to mold you to take exactly the images they take.
What is your reward?
Is the reward a prize? Is it a copy of a famous scene on your wall?
I guess I am not sufficiently competitive. I don’t see the “game” as a contest where there is 1 winner and everybody else loses.
The reward that matters to me is how I feel about my work. If it won prizes or was copied by other people I guess that would be satisfying. But that satisfaction would quickly fade. What remains is my work and the joy I feel in it.
In my long life I have discovered repeatedly that I get much better long term satisfaction from things I really earn and from the works of my own creation.
So enter contests if that motivates you. Get a guide to help you create your images if that helps you. But make sure you are making your images. Make them because it is your vision, not to please or imitate someone else.
Are you being your own person in your work? Let me know how it is going.
July 22, 2020
Making Sketches
I am changing my perception of how I work. I used to view myself as going out and “making pictures”. Now I see myself more as going around making sketches.
What is a sketch?
I like words, and I like to know where they come from and what they really mean – their etymology. I know, I’m a geek. You don’t have to tell me. Here, let me prove it: “sketch” may be derived from several words from Dutch, German, Italian, or Latin, but the root seems to be Greek, σχέδιος – schedios. It means something temporary or done off hand. Wow, see. Geek but proud of it.
One of the most understood meanings of “sketch” is a “rough drawing intended to serve as the basis for a finished picture“. This had been an established process of artists for centuries.
Most painters begin their studies doing sketches and continue using sketch as an important tool the rest of their career. It is like a serious musician doing scales and simple practice every day. It continues to develop the eye/hand/muscle memory/mind. Plus, sketches are a tool for artists to capture a form or expression or gesture, to work out a plan for a piece, even to just record something they want to remember. Here is a sketch by Manet, 1878:
Even when doing a final work, artists often sketch the composition on the canvas before starting. They then have a guide to follow as they overpaint the intended image. The final product may depart from the sketch, but it was shaped by it..
Image capture as a sketch
How does this apply to photography? I am starting to think of my original captured frames as sketches. But why? I spent a career learning how to set up and perfectly execute an image capture. Why change that?
It is a concession to reality and a psychological tool. Sometimes (well, often to be honest) when I load my images into Lightroom, I am disappointed with them. They just did not capture the scene the way I saw it, or at least the way I wanted it to be.
The limitations of photography are well known. It is a process of trying to map a vibrant, dynamic, 3 dimensional world with action happening everywhere to a static 2 dimensional representation. No matter how good a camera and lens is, it is a woefully limited process.
Now I am reframing the problem. Rather than being disappointed and beating myself up for not having a portfolio image appear right out of the camera, I say “that is a good sketch of what I perceived. What do I have to do to develop the idea and complete it?”
Starting point
Giving myself permission to see my original image as a starting point rather than an end is a big deal. If I’m not happy with it, it wasn’t a failure, it was a sketch. The sketch probably captured some important aspects of the scene that attracted me. Now what do I have to do to proceed?
Maybe everything I need is there in the RAW file and it just needs to be manipulated to bring it out. After seeing the reality of the sketch on screen, maybe I think about the scene differently now. Maybe only a part of the scene I photographed is really the picture.
Sometimes the sketch can be developed into a picture. Maybe it helped me understand what I wanted and how to frame and capture it. Maybe it proved to be a dead end. In any case, it was worthwhile. I took a chance to explore an idea. If it didn’t work out, no big deal. I was not heavily invested in it. It was not a failure.
But when it does work out, what a great feeling.
Incomplete
I now always view any unprocessed RAW image as a sketch. It is, at best, a starting point. No unprocessed RAW image could ever make one of my portfolios. It is incomplete out of the camera. And I have a really good camera.
The camera is a piece of technology. It captures pixels. It does an incredible job of doing what it is designed to do, but it does not have my eye. The camera cannot know what is important to me. It does not know where the emphasis or interest is in the collection of pixels. I have to provide that.
I have to provide the color correction to achieve the look I want, which may not be a completely accurate version of the live scene. I have to provide the tone mapping to achieve the relationships I want between the parts of the composition. I have to provide the level of sharpening (or un-sharpening) to get the effect I want.
Even at the mechanical level of pixel-pushing there are a huge number of choices and corrections I must make. This is necessary to bring the sketch along toward becoming a picture.
Turning into art
The basic corrections and adjustments are great and fun and make a huge difference in the look of the file. But I have a problem here going forward and moving from a decently done image to art. Here, viewing it as a sketch helps me.
A sketch is obviously rough and incomplete. No one would consider it the final image. Calling my images sketches helps emphasize to me that this is true in photography, too. Don’t stop with a “nice image”. It has to go further. It has to be special, different. It has to tell a story or make a difference.
The raw material may be there, but it is probably not finished yet.
By still viewing it as a sketch, it is easier to give my creativity permission to drastically modify what is there on screen. Does the intended mood require it to be darkened to an extreme? Do it. Are there distracting elements that take away from the focus of the image? Remove them or crop the picture. Is it a tone-oriented composition that would work better in black and white? Make it so.
Sometimes the sketch can’t be developed into the intended final image. This is still good! The sketch proved valuable. It helped me discover what I wanted to do. It was not a failure. Maybe I need to go back with my vision clarified, and shoot it again. It is not always possible, but sometimes it can be done. If I can’t shoot it again I can file away the experience so I can look for similar situations in the future and do a better job of recognizing what I really want to do.
In either case, I would not have gotten to the point I did without having a sketch to work with to clarify my vision of the subject.
I shoot sketches now.
Have you tried looking at your work like this? Did it help you get to better results? Share your experience with us by commenting here.
July 8, 2020
There is no I in TEAM
This famous coaching advice is so well known that it is almost a cliche. There is no I in TEAM. It has been used for a long time to convince athletes of the necessity of teamwork. And this is right. A sports team must work together. Winning is a team effort, not an individual thing.
I am turning this saying upside down for this article. The point here is that my art is not a team effort. There is no team in I.
Not a group effort
My creativity and the products of my creativity, my art works, come solely from my head. I do not have collaborators or mentors or advisors. It is a lonely and scary place in here, but it is where I work. There is not room for anyone else in here. Plus, I’m not very sociable when it gets that personal. If someone tries to get in my head I resist strongly.
I enjoy listening to artists I respect talking about how they create and what their process is. I browse images from other photographers and painters. But those things are just inputs. Some of the forces that “pump the laser“, as I have written before.
But after a time, the books are closed, the videos are shut off, and I come home from the galleries. It is time to work. A writer or a painter is faced with the terror of a blank page waiting to be filled. A photographer must confront the terror of “nothing of interest“. A world of clutter and stuff that does not call to us.
How to respond to that is not the subject of this post. See the one I reference above. The point here is that it is up to me to do whatever is going to be done. No one else is responsible. No one else can do my work.
Helpful suggestions aren’t, usually
Ah, the helpful friends or family members who come forward with suggestions for what I should shoot. “I saw a great scene yesterday you should check out.” Or “I would do a project about …”.
They are sincerely trying to help. I appreciate the thought and the care behind what they mean. But even my wife does not really know what might motivate me at any time. No, I take the suggestions thankfully. Sometimes I politely shoot what they suggest. They almost never makes my short list of good images, though.
Ultimately, it is up to me to get off dead center and do something. I have to find or generate motivation about something. Creativity means I created it.
No collaborative environment for me
The corporate world and the education establishment believe with religious fervor that collaboration is absolutely the only way to do things. In one of my previous lives as a software architect and a user experience designer I was deep in such an atmosphere.
Surfacing ideas was a group process, design was collaborative, even deciding on requirements was required to involve a group discussion. Everything involved a consensus process. I felt then and I still firmly believe that such a process leads to a median quality in everything. It might improve the efforts of a poor designer but it greatly limits the capability of a great one.
Now, as an artist, I am not limited by a group. Of course it means I do not have the support of the group to carry me when ideas do not come. But walking the high wire alone is part of what you buy in to when becoming an artist.
I cannot share responsibility (or blame) with anybody for my failures.
Solitude
I realized a long time ago that I am an introvert. This is fairly common to creatives. If there is too much “noise” or chatter or helpful suggestions I cannot think creatively.
I need to be alone in my head. I need to protect that small, dark creative space while ideas are flickering into life. Many may die there, but some will grow and develop. Like a young tender plant those ideas need to be protected while they develop.
My ideas do not spring into being fully formed. Sometimes I get a glimmer of something that needs to be worked on. Sometimes something draws me to a subject and it is only later that I begin to realize what was calling me.
I long ago discovered that if I am having to argue for or justify new ideas as they are forming, many great things will be lost. It is hard for me to argue for something I don’t yet understand well. I will save the arguments for within my own head. Even then I lose a lot of them.
There is enough noise inside my head already without having to deal with the clash of outside opinions.
Individuality
My value as an artist comes from the uniqueness of what I bring. This develops from my individuality.
If a group process produces average results, the only way to produce excellent things is to let individuals flourish. My art is my own. All I have to present to the world, such as it is, I can at least know is a product of my own mind. It is me.
I am not skilled at telling you about me, but when you look at my art you see what I think and value and perceive.
Teams are not for me.
Teamwork can be good. I have been part of great teams in my previous career and as a musician once upon a time. Being part of a well functioning team is a joy. But I believe that the artist is excluded from the team. He is the one sitting on the edge that no one chooses for his team. You know, the one with the far off look, wandering off, not paying much attention to the game.
So if there is no I in team, and if “I” is all I have to sell or to differentiate myself from the rest of the world, then there is no place for team in my process. There is no team in I.
And that works OK for me.
June 10, 2020
Did It Really Look Like That?
“Did it really look like that?” is not an uncommon question. But it is tricky to answer. Sometimes I try to probe to find out what question they are actually asking. But really it comes down to their point of view.
Why
There are many possible reasons for the question. Most are probably innocent. Some, maybe not.
Looking at it generously, many people simply are expressing that they have never seen anything quite like that and wonder if it is really real. It may look too good to be true. Has it been there all this time and they’ve just missed it? Maybe they have been to this place or one like it and they did not bring back any pictures that looked like that. They are impressed, but maybe skeptical.
I will take this as a compliment.
On the other hand, some ask suspiciously. Underlying the question is the implication that it is a fake. If it looks too good to be true then it is probably not true. Therefore I must have manipulated or over-processed the image to the point that it no longer represents reality.
This is an interesting concept to me. Sometimes I like to engage them in a dialog, but most of the time I just ignore them rather than trying to educate them or get into a heated exchange.
Look like to who?
One of the simplest responses to the question is to ask “look like to who?” If the questioner was there at the same time they may have seen something different from me. Another photographer also probably would have gotten something different out of it. If a painter was there, they may well have interpreted it very differently.
That is one of the things that makes art. Each artist brings their own unique interpretation of a scene or event.
Underlying the “did it look like that?” question is the assumption that I am supposed to represent exactly what the scene was. That is your assumption, not mine. Get over it. I spent decades believing a photography should faithfully record a scene. I have grown well past that.
I have never promised you I am trying to bring you images that are absolutely, exactly what a scene looked like. As a matter of fact, I promise that is not my goal. Unless it is what I decide to do. 🙂
The negative is the score
This is a great and classic observation from Ansel Adams. I refer to it often. As I have observed in another post, I consider that technology has brought us to a re-interpretation of the statement.
The digital capture is raw material. It is no longer processed like a dance in a real time performance. It is edited and processes at leisure on the computer. We have the tools and the technology to go far beyond what could be considered in the film days. Alain Briot uses the French term esquisse. I believe it refers to an artist’s rough, preliminary sketch of a piece. This sketch would only hint at the composition and details of the final work. He relates the raw material of the image capture to this artist sketch.
What a wonderful time to be an artist! Our imaginations are less constrained. We have more freedom to let our creativity reinterpret the raw material. Why constrain yourself? Don’t stop with the basic capture. Continue on to make it conform to the vision you had that compelled you to take the picture in the first place.
What does it matter what it looked like?
At the risk of offending some people, I will say that a reproduction of what a scene looked like can get pretty boring. Once you have seen it you know everything about it. There is no challenge. No mystery. Nothing to draw you back to look at it again and again.
Unless I, as an artist, am able to bring something unique to it, what is the image worth? When I bring you my point of view, though, you have something more to consider. You may not agree with my point of view. It may not speak to you. But I want you to know that this is mine.
I hope, of course, that my viewpoint will challenge you, make you think, make you see at least a small part of the world differently, maybe even open up your perception to other things. That is my role as an artist.
Art is
So I would challenge you that “did it really look like that?” is not the right question. It would be better to ask “what is the artist saying?”, “what does it mean to me?”, and “how can this help me see the world differently?”
Art is art. It is a unique work of human creativity. It does not have to mean something. It does not have to faithfully reproduce a real scene in nature. It cannot be fake unless it is a mindless copy that brings nothing of the artist.
Art is art. It is not truth. Any truth you find in it is what you derive for yourself from what the artist has shown you. It is a communication between the artist and the viewer. Both have to do their work.
Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.
David Alan Harvey
June 3, 2020
Open to the Unexpected
When you go out to shoot do you know before you leave exactly what you want to find? Many people do. I feel sorry for them. I greatly prefer to “go out empty” as Jay Maisel would say and let the amazing world around me surprise and delight me. Learn to expect the unexpected.
This is absolutely my opinion and my photographic style. I am a fine art photographer who works primarily outdoors. The world outside is my canvas. If I were a portrait or commercial photographer I would have to do things differently. When there are crews and talent and art directors and contracts to fulfill, I recognize that the photographer has to plan and organize tightly. I am glad that that is not my world. I thrive on spontaneity.
Subjective vs. Objective
In a recent webcast by Chris Murray on Nature Photographer’s Network, he discussed the idea of objective vs. subjective photography. (Sorry but this is a fee site, but you can sign up for a free month.) It was a good talk. He spend a lot of time on his journey from objective to subjective.
He characterized objective images as ones that document a scene and subjective images as images that convey how the artist felt about or responded to the scene.
I think most of us start out objective. It happened naturally when we point our camera at a beautiful landmark and get a picture that makes us say “wow, that’s beautiful”. But if it has no more interpretation by us, it is not really different from the hundreds or thousands of other captures of that scene.
The thing I want to point out here, though, is that Chris said when shooting objective images he would research a location, decide the time of year and time of day that would be best for it, and go there and sit until the conditions were what he expected. He told about camping on a mountain for 3 days waiting for the image he visualized.
The image he got was a beautiful scene in the Adirondack Mountains. But my reaction to it was “meh…”. (Sorry Chris). To me it did not have any passion or depth. He got almost exactly the shot he planned, but my thought was “why?”.
What do you miss?
What did he miss while he was waiting 3 days on that mountain for the “right” time and conditions? Maybe nothing, but maybe a lot. To me that is too great a price to pay.
I have heard other photographers talk about fighting for a tripod spot at a grand, iconic spot, realizing that they were about to take the same shot that thousands of others take every year. Then they turn around and see a scene the other direction that is more meaningful to them. One that most of the other photographers failed to see because they were totally fixated on the iconic scene.
I try to be open and aware of what is around wherever I am. Same applies as much if I am walking a downtown street as if I am in a wilderness. Wonderful images can be discovered anywhere.
Avoid preconceptions
If you decide before you head out what you want to shoot, you put mental blinders on yourself. It is a fact that you only see what you expect to see.
This is called “selective attention”. A famous, effective, and short demonstration of this is in this video. Watch it! It is very enlightening. I won’t give a spoiler here, but this applies to any of us. If you are only looking for birds you will tend to only see birds.
Maybe that works OK for you. It’s not what I want for me. I want to be open to all the exciting things around me. And there are a lot of them. Many of my favorite images are things I would not have known to look for if I was making a list beforehand. I don’t want to miss out on the excitement of truly seeing and openly exploring what an area has to offer..
Grow
We all need to practice our skills and our visualization. Even the most famous and experienced photographers make themselves take time for personal projects to keep from getting stale and to grow in creative ways. Learning to avoid the trap of preconception can be part of that growth.
All artists need constant practice. Pablo Casals was possibly the greatest cellist.
The world’s foremost cellist, Pablo Casals, is 83. He was asked one day why he continued to practice four and five hours a day. Casals answered, “Because I think I am making progress.”
— Leonard Lyons
Repetition is one thing. I have advocated for that before. It is necessary. But there are other ways of learning to break your habit of preconception.
A great thing to do is to go minimalist. Go out for a day of shooting with one camera body and one lens. I can hear you sputtering now. ☺ “But I might need my fisheye; or I might need 400mm”. No, not if you don’t have it. Practice getting great shots with what you have.
An interesting thing happens when you let go and go with it. Let’s say you just take your 50mm prime. When you get into it, you will quickly start to see the world from the 50mm perspective. This is probably a type of selective attention, but it is forcing you in a different dimension. Instead of being selective on subjects, you are selecting your viewpoint on the world around you. It is a great exercise.
I did something similar on a larger scale. My natural vision is telephoto. My ideal lens is 70-200mm. Even longer is great for me sometimes. I like to crop in on details. But for over a year I have switched to mainly shooting with my wonderful 24-70mm. I think it has helped me grow in my creativity. I am surprised at some of the new things I see.
Let yourself be surprised!
For me, my art is a voyage of discovery. It is exciting because I never know what I will find. I like to be surprised!
When I can get into seeing the excitement and possibilities all around me there is sometimes so much to shoot that I have to just stop and take some deep breaths. Slow down. Decide how I feel about what I am seeing and what I want to say. Pace myself. It can be an embarrassment of riches. I am drowning in the imagery.
The image with this article is an example. I was head down by a lake shooting grass and reflections. That is all I was paying attention to. Eventually I noticed that things were changing and getting colorful. Looking up, I discovered this gorgeous thunderstorm was forming practically right by me. This became the picture. The other images I shot that day are forgotten.
It even applies to post processing. Sometimes I shoot frames just because my instinct tells me there is something there I am not consciously seeing. Sometimes whatever I was drawn to becomes apparent in post. As I work an image, something magical begins to emerge. It is like creating an image in front of me on the screen directly from light and the manipulations I am doing to coax out an elusive something. That is a joy, too. It is the kind of surprise that makes art worthwhile.
So I invite you to stop limiting yourself artificially. Don’t block your vision by deciding in advance what you only want to find. Let go. React. Be open to the unexpected. Go out empty, as Jay Maisel famously says. Enjoy discovering what there is instead of being frustrated by what you can’t find.
May 6, 2020