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09/17/2006 12:54:50 AM · #26 |
I have just looked at my port and notice a lack of true creativity but I can assure you that the majority are first visualized and then brought home to fruition by a tour de force. However, this image may serve the purpose for a common explanation. First I think Zen, since this is the challenge description. What is Zen? If I say nothing it is close. It is a practice that has no selfish ambition. You merely attempt to clear your mind by concentrating on counting between one and four. The student that thinks and tries to reach eternal truths will approach the master and present the convolutions of their reasoning. The master simply tells them to shoo and continue counting. The answers will never need reasoning or explaining. Well, this forces me to think of sheer simplicity. Like not trying to win the viewer by sheer symbolism.
So, the idea appears as a shaft of light...ah, but what am I going to do with this light? I know that I will need darkness to accent it. All well and good but here I only have light and dark. Then I see the door. Very good, but no place in my part of the world where I can find such a place, so I go back to seek the rest of the image. Aha, like a flash it forms. This is an image that I must make happen. Miniture! Cardboard box and then what on the ground? Millet! Why millet? Because when I did study Zen I ate millet and all that cerulean stuff. From here to chop stick was a small step.
So you see, the initial spark was incomplete. I was forced back to lay at the muses feet and quietly beg. But it is mostly all free association where one thing begets the next and then you have to get off your ass and make it happen.
Message edited by author 2006-09-17 01:18:22. |
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09/17/2006 01:23:30 AM · #27 |
Well talking about creative thinking.........
My most creative entry had been for bits and pieces challenge......
Though the shot has technical flaws like the broken Lense......and many more as it was my third entry .
How i got the idea??
Well it was something which stuck me as soon as i read the challenge title.....To me bits mean zeros and one's.......
So all that i had to do was think of how to use them.........
Unfortunately someone else had earlier taken a somewhat very similar picture to mine ...... so i really cant call it unique .
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09/17/2006 12:14:53 PM · #28 |
Originally posted by ursula:
A quote from my most favourite photographer:
"Most people reason deductively much of the time and most photographers see that way. We have a premise or dominant idea, whether or not it is consciously determined, and we proceed along a line of thought that develops logically the implications of the idea. Eventually, we reach a conclusion. It's a closed process. Seldom do we look sideways, that is, search for other premises or new beginnings. We avoid introducing new factors, technical or emotional, into our photography for fear that we won't be able to control them."
Freeman Patterson, Photography & the Art of Seeing |
This is why many of my favorite photos are unplanned and spontaneous. When you "plan" a photo, by conciously picking a specific subject and framing it in a specific way, it is inherently limiting. The photo will only be as good as you are. On the other hand, if you just turn your brain off and "just shoot it", you can get some very cool results. Results that are greater than you are. (Of course you'll get a lot of total crap, too, but you can always delete those :))
I think that this is also why I like prime lenses. There's something about zoom lenses that gives me TOO MUCH control of my photo. A zoom lens allows me to frame the photo exactly how my limited brain thinks it SHOULD look. A prime lens, on the other hand, forces me to use more unusual compositions.
Here's an example:
This was for the "Coffee Shop" challenge. I was having breakfast with my wife at a local diner, and I had my 30mm prime lens on my camera. I was sitting across the table from her, which is really a little too close for that lens. This forced me to create an unusual composition, because I couldn't get all of her head and the coffee cup into the frame. Her head is heavily cropped and her face is in the extreme corner of the frame; far from a "rule of thirds" composition. But this photo totally works, IMO. The composition gives the photo a feeling of intimacy that a more traditional composition would lack.
Message edited by author 2006-09-17 13:07:18. |
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09/19/2006 10:14:49 AM · #29 |
Thanks for the post Keith! I think one of my challenges has been that my passion for photography started with documentary work. I believe there can be creativity in capturing the scene in front of you, but maybe it's a little different than working an on image that is completely preconceived and then created. Even with my recent portrait work, I am uncomfortable previsualising because I might miss an aspect of the subject that had not come out before. So now I am wondering how you develop the real-time creativity in how you interact and interpret a situation as it occurs.
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09/19/2006 10:47:59 AM · #30 |
Admittedly, I'm a total amateur at photography, but I have worked in other creative fields. The one thing about creativity that seems to mystify people the most is first creation, to seemingly create something from nothing. A director, for example, has a script. The scriptwriter might be working from a novel. But the novelist, created his novel from nothing!
The answer, of course, is that nothing really comes from nothing. All creativity involves a listening of some sort. It might mean literally listening and looking around you for ideas, gathering scraps and notions to put together in new ways. And then when you're arranging these ideas and notions in different ways, you have to become the perfect audience, waiting until you see something beautiful come together. That's why overplanning can kill you, because you've planned everything out before you've had a chance to be an audience to it. Instead, you should plan partway, leave gaps and alternatives.
This is my highest scoring image, and an example of a partial plan. I wanted to take a picture of  meanwile with a single cloud in the sky, in order to use the literary quote "I wandered lonely as a cloud." But the sky was not cooperating that week. The clouds were not differentiating. One evening we stumbled upon a beautiful location as the sun was setting. A glorious mist was in the air. Both of us had the same impulse: to take advantage of this opportunity. We both took shots. I decided to have her "wander" in my shot, even if the clouds weren't doing exactly what I wanted. I took a lot of pictures and then picked the best one when I got home. So, I consider myself extremely lucky to have been in the right place at the right time, but then again I was in a mindset open enough to take advantage of it.
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09/19/2006 06:06:34 PM · #31 |
Originally posted by Nusbaum:
Thanks for the post Keith ... I believe there can be creativity in capturing the scene in front of you, but maybe it's a little different than working an on image that is completely preconceived and then created. |
Yeah, I totally agree. I wouldn't say that my "Coffee Shop" picture is necessarily creative, as such. I guess I'm just saying that the prime lens forced an unusual composition, and I just got lucky that the composition actually worked.
Originally posted by Nusbaum:
So now I am wondering how you develop the real-time creativity in how you interact and interpret a situation as it occurs. |
I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this, but this is a good question. I think you just need to not over-think things when you're shooting. Try to let go of pre-conceived notions of what makes a good photo. Don't just look at a scene with your eyes and brain, but try to feel the scene. Look around and be open to it. Maybe I'm just spouting nonsense, but I think there's probably some truth to this.
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09/19/2006 06:15:37 PM · #32 |
Originally posted by Keith Maniac:
Originally posted by Nusbaum:
So now I am wondering how you develop the real-time creativity in how you interact and interpret a situation as it occurs. |
I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this, but this is a good question. I think you just need to not over-think things when you're shooting. Try to let go of pre-conceived notions of what makes a good photo. Don't just look at a scene with your eyes and brain, but try to feel the scene. Look around and be open to it. Maybe I'm just spouting nonsense, but I think there's probably some truth to this. |
Yes, real-time creativity involves letting go of inhibitions and running on pure instinct. The closer you get to your primal instincts, the more impact you are going to bring to your viewer. When you touch a human's most basic instincts, you've brought something powerful to the table.
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09/19/2006 06:47:34 PM · #33 |
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:
Originally posted by Keith Maniac:
Originally posted by Nusbaum:
So now I am wondering how you develop the real-time creativity in how you interact and interpret a situation as it occurs. |
I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this, but this is a good question. I think you just need to not over-think things when you're shooting. Try to let go of pre-conceived notions of what makes a good photo. Don't just look at a scene with your eyes and brain, but try to feel the scene. Look around and be open to it. Maybe I'm just spouting nonsense, but I think there's probably some truth to this. |
Yes, real-time creativity involves letting go of inhibitions and running on pure instinct. The closer you get to your primal instincts, the more impact you are going to bring to your viewer. When you touch a human's most basic instincts, you've brought something powerful to the table. |
This is where skill comes in. If you've thoroughly learned your instrument, in this case the camera, then when the moment comes you can use it without thinking and keep yourself in your creative mind. The rest of us have to fumble about... :)
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