Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Tag: psychology

  • The Making of “Brush Off”

    The Making of “Brush Off”

    It was refreshing for me talking about making a piece of art instead of just discussing process or training. I will do it again. This time it is the making of the piece presented here. It is titled “Brush Off”. It is one of those abstract, “what is it?” pieces that I like to do.

    Context

    If you think this is something very exotic, sorry to disappoint you. As a matter of fact, it is something common and mundane.

    This is the brush going over the top of my car in an automatic car wash. Looking up through the sun roof. Like I said, mundane. Sorry.

    The point, though, is: even something as common as this can be interesting if you look at it the right way. That is a constant theme of my images.

    Technique

    It was not as easy as just pointing the camera up and shooting. If I did that, even scrunching down in the seat, the lens would be almost right against the sun roof glass. That doesn’t work.

    In order to get the glass in focus and sufficient field of view and depth of field to render the brush the way I wanted I had to get the camera a couple of feet away from the glass. After a couple of wasted sessions of trying to juggle a small tripod in place, I gave up on that and placed the camera on the console looking up. That was the solution. As long as I didn’t bump it.

    Unfortunately though, with the camera there I can’t see what is going on. I had to use the Nikon software on my phone to connect to the camera and control it. Again after trial and error I figured out that I had to put it in manual focus and stop transferring captured images to the phone.

    Even so, there is a noticeable lag between triggering a capture from the phone and it actually happening. Probably about 1/2 to 3/4 second. This took practice to get in the rhythm. I had to anticipate when things would be in place and try to lead the event correctly. Lots of trial and error. I ended up throwing a lot of frames away.

    Finishing

    After all that, I wish the image I saw on the computer screen had looked like I visualized. But no. This was a sunny day. There were lots of reflections on the sun roof glass, both from outside and inside. It was worse because I had to abandon my polarizer to get the shutter speed I needed. It was a balancing game to blur the brush just enough to add to the mystery and abstraction without making it just a smear.

    I did the initial exposure balance and crop in Lightroom, as usual. Then in Photoshop it required extensive selective color tonal manipulation to eliminate the reflections. Then there was more tonal corrections, dodge/burn, limited sharpening, etc.

    Mindfulness

    What I want to point out, though, is that the image is not mainly about technique. Behind the “how” is the “why”. I was curious and mindful even while in a car wash. I asked what it would look like looking up through the top during the wash. And I spent the effort to explore it.

    I’m glad I did. I like it. This is one of a series of images I did in the same car wash over many washes. It turned out to be a useful place to ask some “what if” questions and see what happened.

    I encourage you to follow your curiosity. Don’t be afraid of looking foolish. Don’t worry what anyone else thinks. It is your curiosity and vision.

  • Invest in Yourself

    Invest in Yourself

    You are your best asset. As a matter of fact, you are your only asset. Invest in yourself to develop your skills and abilities.

    Professional

    I am primarily talking about our skills as an artist. We need to invest in our self to grow and get better professionally. It is a life-long process.

    Time

    Do you invest enough time in your art? Many of us have a “real” job to pay the bills. And we have families and other obligations. It stretches us pretty thin at times.

    But we cannot grow as an artist unless we put in the time to do the work. Practice, practice, practice. Repetition. Experiment. These things make us more skilled and more mature in our craft.

    I have heard of a gallery saying they are not interested in an artist until they have painted 10,000 pictures. Of course, that is a silly metric. There is no arbitrary number to reach your peak. I do believe, though, as Linus Pauling said, “The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas and throw away the bad ones.” Same with our art. We get better with practice as we learn to recognize the bad stuff and throw it away.

    We have to put in the reps.

    Training

    I don’t know about you, but before becoming an artist, my professional life involved constant learning. I seldom did things I learned in college. One of the great benefits of my previous career was that I had to learn to learn. My life as an artist is the same.

    My friend Ramit Sethi makes a point of how much he spends on personal development, from courses to books to a personal trainer. He has a much larger budget to play with than I do. Even so, in proportion to where I’m at I may rival him. No personal trainer though. I have to be content with getting out almost every day and walking about 5 miles with my camera. His advice is good. I do like and generally follow his book buying rule: “If you see a book you like, just buy it”. As I write this I’m waiting for a new one to show up.

    It’s not the amount you spend on training that matters, it’s the results. I have occasionally spent hundreds of dollars on classes that were a marginal benefit, but gotten a lot of good from a free online class. It is a matter of what speaks to you at the time. And the fact that you’re doing it regularly. I probably watch 10-15 hours of videos a week on art, marketing, sales, general business, and selected other subjects of interest. No, no funny cat videos.

    The point, though, is that we must constantly invest in our self. When you say you already know everything you need, you start to stagnate. You can always learn something new and improve your artistic skills and yourself personally. You have to.

    Marketing

    Now it starts to hurt, at least for me. I don’t like marketing. I would rather just do art.

    But I have been told over and over and I now believe I have to invest at least 20% of my time marketing. The reality is probably more like 30-40%. I have a lot of catching up to do.

    Unless we are doing our art as a hobby, and are content to just show our work to friends, we have to market ourselves. “Build it and they will come” is a great line for a movie, but is not true in real life.

    Art is a very competitive world. Galleries don’t want to hear from you. They have too many artists already. Selling online? So is everyone else. So what can we do? We build a distinct brand and be very persistent and professional in our outreach.

    Several marketing gurus have made a point that we will never get anywhere if we do something a couple of times then get discouraged and move on to something else. Persistent, repetitive, sustained marketing is required to “break in” to the world we want. I don’t like it, but that is life.

    Personal

    As important as it is to grow and take care of our self professionally, I believe it is equally important to take care of our personal life. I hope your vision for your life is about more than just professional achievement. Do not neglect your health and fitness and your mental and spiritual development.

    The training I advocated above also helps you mentally. Keeping your brain active and learning new things has a lot of long term benefits. A substantial part of the training should be targeted at things that do not seem directly related to your art. Read biographies, history, science, psychology, and even fiction. It is amazing what seemingly unrelated things can spark a creative idea.

    A key word there is “read”. You are a professional. You cannot just watch videos. Reading has a greater benefit than watching a screen. Try it. It is good for your mind.

    Mindful

    A common thread to all of this is mindfulness. This is just a fancy psychological term for being deliberate and conscious in what we do and very aware of what is going on around us. I am studying this now and I am sure I will be writing more on it later. But for now, pay attention to what you do and be very aware of your choices.

    The picture

    I love this picture with the article. It is one of the greatest train tracks I have ever seen. Look closer if nothing jumped out at you when you first saw it.

    I can take it as metaphors for a lot of things. For this article, I will use it to make the point that there are many paths we can chose. But they do not all lead to the outcome we want. Choose wisely and deliberately. The path you want is usually not the easy one. You are your best asset. Take care of yourself. Work at it.

  • That’s Not What I Was Taught

    That’s Not What I Was Taught

    We all learned our craft somehow. And if we develop as artists there comes a point where we have to stop relying on what we were taught and make our own way, maybe in a different direction. At that point we are going beyond what we were taught.

    Instruction

    Unless you were raised by wolves and picked up the concept of making art through a mystical infusion, you were taught somehow. For many that means formal art school or classes and workshops with leading artists.

    Even though I consider myself self-taught, I had thousands of hours of instruction in the form of books, videos, self-evaluation, looking at art, visiting museums, etc.

    Somehow, we got trained. The “muscle memory” was built. We learned the basic techniques and technology. The history and design and composition and color theory and the dozens of other layers of information we need to create art are introduced to us. We build on what has come before.

    It’s like shooting thousands of baskets until you are completely comfortable with the feel and weight of the ball, until you start the have the “touch” to put it where you want from all different angles and distances. This isn’t playing basketball, it’s just getting prepared to play basketball.

    Apprentice

    When the basics are laid down, most of us go through a long “apprenticeship”. It may not be formal and we may not call it that, but that is what it is.

    By apprenticeship I mean we are practicing the basics until they are smooth and natural. At this point we are probably listening to or watching a mentor and trying to create work like theirs. Nothing wrong with this. It is part of the learning process. But we are still creating someone else’s art. This is practice, training.

    To continue the basketball analogy, now we start to practice with the team. We become comfortable passing and catching and playing positions and working smoothly with the others. The coach is yelling at us and making us do drills and repetitive work that seems boring and useless. Maybe we mostly sit on the bench in games and only rotate in occasionally. The reality is that we are probably not as good yet as we think. The coach knows that. That is why we aren’t playing much right now.

    As artists, maybe we go out shooting or painting a lot with our mentor. They direct us to locations and talk through how they see the image. It is helping us learn to create a decent image. It may not be how we see it, but at this point we are trying to produce results that match theirs.

    Independence

    Ah… someday. The longer we go through our training and apprenticeship, the more we begin to chafe under the restrictions. As we develop our own style and vision some of us yearn to break away and do what we think we need to do.

    One of the things Jesus said to his disciples was interesting (well, a lot were): “Students are not greater than their teacher.” That’s true, as long as there is a teacher/student relationship. As long as the teacher has something to teach you. But he goes on to say “But the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.”

    There comes a point where there are diminishing returns from studying from a teacher. If the student comes to a parity level with the teacher, they become the teacher.

    That is the thing. At some point, we become our own teachers. Not that we know everything, but that no one else does either, so we have to guide our self.

    Where do you go then?

    What I observe, unscientifically, is 3 paths at this point:

    • Continue doing what you were taught
    • Enhance it a little and go slightly beyond
    • Figure out that there is something different

    It seems to me that most artists proudly continue doing work like they were taught. They go on to get better and better at the same things. I’m not criticizing them. This seems to be the best path for many people. I can’t understand it myself, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

    Another group pushes a little beyond what they were taught. They enhance the techniques, maybe modernize them with new materials or processes. Maybe introduce a little fusion from another school. The result is a natural evolution of what they learned. Again, no criticism. But again, I can’t understand staying so close to home.

    It would seem obvious that I must be in the last group, since I don’t fit anywhere else. 🙂 We sincerely thank our instructors for the training they gave us. But we realize we have a different vision and will be creating a completely different form of art. This is not a rejection of our instructors, just a growth stage.

    Our own body of work

    My view is that at some point, we have to let our own vision and style emerge and take the lead in our work. This is not something that happens automatically as soon as we leave the umbrella of our instructor. It happens over some period of time. The time is completely personal and dependent only on ourselves.

    Hopefully at this point we can trust our judgment to recognize and follow the path we are being drawn to. We are creating our own body of work, in our own style, following our own vision. Now we are really an independent artist. We have no more need for a teacher. Confidants, advisors, mentors, critics even, but not teachers.

    What we are doing is not what we were taught. It is what we have transformed that teaching to that works for us.

  • Lucky, or Good?

    Lucky, or Good?

    You’ve heard the phrase “it’s better to be lucky than good”. Some people will claim this is terrible advice. But I think there is enough truth in the phrase to merit some thought. Strive to be as good as possible, but welcome and embrace luck when it happens.

    Not the way to plan

    We can’t schedule or control luck. It is an external thing that happens, or it doesn’t. Since we can’t control luck, we better work on the things we can control. This is just pragmatic.

    The context here is art, but it really applies to most areas of our life. Work hard. Develop all the skill you are capable of. It is a life-long quest of continual improvement.

    When we are good at what we do we have more control of the outcomes. Another old saying you’ve heard is “the race doesn’t always go to the swiftest, but that’s the way to bet.” In this case, bet on skill. Our skill is a huge determinant of what we will achieve,

    Art, though, like many important things, is not completely predictable and deterministic. Unexpected or unforeseen things can happen and that can be good.

    Luck happens

    When the unforeseen happens we tend to call it luck. No matter how great our skill or how much we plan, sometimes something happens that just makes us say “wow.”

    If this event takes us away from our desired goal we tend to call it unfortunate – bad luck. If it sparks a new idea or gives a new insight or makes some problems go away we call it good luck.

    In either case this event was unplanned, unexpected, unanticipated. That is part of the beauty of it. Or it can be, depending on what we do with it.

    Be open and receptive

    Luck can be received as a gift. We should be flexible enough to re-evaluate our plans and goals in the moment to consider what we have seen or learned. Psychologically healthy people tend to have an attitude of gratitude. This luck could be pure gold. We should consider ourselves fortunate.

    It can trigger the creation of a great image or even bring us to a new place in our art. Even what we at first consider to be bad luck can have good outcomes. There have been times when I had been working on an image or even a project and a piece of bad luck causes me to reevaluate what I am planning on doing. Sometimes I conclude I was going down a dead end. The bad luck sent me to a different and better place.

    This cannot happen unless we are open. I could not possibly list all the times some lucky accident caused me to change my plan. Or the number of times I have learned something new to eagerly apply in my work.

    This image

    Let me talk a little more about this image than I usually do in these articles. I try to get out all year in all weather. In the winter I try be aware of good ice patterns, because I sometimes like the patterns and textures. Usually, here, there is enough snow to make the ice cloudy and less interesting. Nice, but kind of all the same.

    This day, though, I hit a brief window where the lakes had partially thawed. Then a hard freeze, with no snow, and calm conditions, had led to the formation of beautiful ice crystals. In addition, the edges of the lakes I was at had good rock just under the surface to give more pattern and color.

    I abandoned everything else I was planning to do and nearly froze to death shooting this ice. It was very cold.

    I love this image. It has not been altered substantially. Just some color boost and correction. I haven’t seen these conditions before or since. It was a happy accident – good luck.

    Lucky or good?

    So, is it better to be lucky or good? I will let you answer that for yourself. For me, I believe we need to work very hard on our skill and our vision. We have to be able to produce the work we want to create at the quality level we want. But I also believe we should be receptive to the happy accidents that bring joy and freshness to our life and vision. They seem to go together.

    Maybe Samuel Goldwin was right when he said “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

  • Polarizing

    Polarizing

    I wish I were talking about the great polarizing filters I routinely have on my lens. But no. We live in highly polarizing times. Just look at almost any political talk, at least here in the United States that I am familiar with. Or any “discussion” of social values, climate control, animal rights, etc. There seems to be a bimodal distribution on all things. That is just a fancy way of saying everyone is to one extreme or the other with few in the middle – we are polarized.

    I actually want to encourage it. Let me explain.

    Emotion

    One of my goals is to create a reaction in you with my images. It doesn’t have to be a strong reaction. I don’t shoot for social causes, so you won’t see starving refugees or sex trafficking or such subjects. Congratulations to those who are drawn to exploring such things, but that is not me.

    Nor do images need to be graphic and depressing to evoke emotion. One of the side effects of the extreme polarization in most things is that promoters of a cause are extremely “serious” about what they are doing. To the point where, if you don’t agree and support them, you are a worthless human being.

    I promise never to deal with you that way. My images look at the world around me, wherever I am. I try to find joy and wonder in even the smallest things. If I can transfer some of that wonder to you, I am successful. We all need more wonder and joy in our lives.

    So one metric I look for is that an image needs to be more than just about something. It needs to make you feel something.

    Boring

    I will express my personal opinion that most photography is boring. Including some of mine. Beautiful sunsets get old quick. Technically perfect images aren’t much use unless the subject or composition is also very strong. And selfies – I won’t even go there.

    I believe an image should move you in some way. Even if it is just to make you stare at it in disbelief or puzzlement. Ideally it should connect with you in some way. Some way that makes you pause and consider it for a while.

    It takes a lot of effort to make an image that is not boring. That is one reason it is fun and creative.

    Conventional

    Another trap is making conventional images. That is, subjects and compositions that we expect, that are similar to what most other people do. This is playing it safe. This is a danger of thinking in terms of social media “likes”.

    Learn the rules, then decide when to break them. You are an artist. There are really no rules. If we apply our creativity we can probably do better than the average and conventional. Try to look at things differently. Maybe a different position or unconventional lens choice. Spend time thinking about what you want to say.

    Being different can easily be abused. I do not care for images that are different in some weird way just for the sake of being different. What makes you think that landscape actually looks better out of focus? Have something to say.

    Wonder

    For me, it comes down to trying to keep a sense of wonder and finding out how to convey that to my viewers. It’s easier said than done. Most of us lose our wonder as we mature. That is unfortunate. We are just getting to a place where we can understand enough of the world to actually wonder at it.

    I understand. I lose my wonder at times and have to re-discover it. Especially now that I am old cynicism seems to wash the color out of everything. I fight it. Sometimes I win. It feels good to really get interested in something.

    Power of art

    I’m a hopeless optimist. I believe art is one of the things that can bring people together. It rises above our polarizing differences. There is not conservative or liberal art. No Blue or Red art. Even if we disagree on many things, we can share enjoyment of an image that speaks to us. We can even share dislike of an image.

    Maybe agreeing on something we both don’t like can start bringing us together.

    Love it or hate it

    That brings me back around to my theme for this article. I want my viewers to feel something when they look at my art. Ideally I would like them to love it. But is they don’t, I would prefer them to hate it than to be indifferent.

    This is my art. I labored over it to present it to you. Being indifferent is the most terrible outcome I can imagine.

    Unlike our divided political climate, I would prefer a polarizing, bimodal response to my art. If you don’t feel anything one way or another I have probably failed. Even if you hate it, perhaps you will at least consider it for a few minutes and decide maybe there is something there to take away.