In the Frame: Sunday Dispatch 1-22-23: Working Our Creative Muscles
Photography is easy except when it isn't. Look for more 'isn't' situations to keep pushing forward.
Forget conventional wisdom, the ‘tried and true’, the humdrum, and the normal for a few hours when making images. It can lead to some total abominations, for sure - but it can also give you a glimpse of something new, something intriguing, something you MUST follow through with.
When you are working with your images, try to find the edge where you feel confident and step across it for a peek at more creativity. Good or bad doesn’t matter, seek out the different and challenge it for its right to be seen.
Having the ability to see things from new and different angles, POVs, contexts, and more can be invaluable for any creative, especially those who can manipulate reality through the gear around their neck.
Challenging new work can also be used to recharge us when we are drained, blocked, or when the ideas are not coming in strong enough.
Here are a few things you can do.
Build your imagination muscle by asking questions that are perhaps silly, or unanswerable… it’s OK to not have an answer, the thinking is the thing.
What is the sound of blue?
What would a major chord look like if it was carved out of stone?
What is the texture of a poem by e. e. cummings?
And how could we light it?
Grab a photo that you like and ask questions about it; what does it sound like, what color would it be, and how would you describe it to someone who cannot see it?
Can you wax poetic a bit about your own work? I think we must be able to discuss the whys as well as the hows, and possibly a bit of the expectation of our work
Grab a photo that didn’t make your cut, and explain why it didn’t. Write a scathing review of the image where you pick apart every single item that you noticed caused the image to be unworthy. Doing this will reinforce what you do love about making great images.
We used to think of formats when choosing a camera for a job.
I would think “this is an 8×10 shot”, or “I should use 35MM for this one.”
We would even think about the physical act of looking into the camera as a part of our choice… waist-level, eye-level, or from inside a dark tent blocking all of our peripheral view and forcing that ground glass screen right into our eyes.
These days we are grabbing the camera most closely resembling the 35MM cameras of yesteryear.
That means that most of our shots are taken with the camera against our face, standing up. I call that the “yawn” position.
Try to get something different, special, or unique; you must change your POV and NOT necessarily take the shot from standing upright.
Get lower. Get higher. Move in closer. Crop when it can be dramatic. Leave space when it can be dramatic. Force perspective. Flatten perspective.
Use the tools we have to do what they do best.
And once we get to the point where we are planning the shot… the camera is at our eye… we must ask questions there as well.
Is this the best angle?
Is this the best POV?
Is this the best lens?
What happens if I go long, or go shorter?
Where is my subject?
Am I sure that my subject IS my subject?
Will the subject ‘read’ as my subject?
What is going to interfere in the presentation of this image?
How can I create a more dramatic image?
And on and on.
We can and should go deep, although with experience this all happens in a matter of seconds or less.
But then the worry sets in…
What might someone say about this image?
What if someone doesn’t like it?
What if my shot is not as good as I think it is?
And on and on.
But see, here’s the thing.
It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Not at all.
Expect that someone is not going to like it.
In fact, be upset if EVERYONE likes it.
Because then it is no longer remarkable, it is the lowest common denominator.
(And you are never going to make an image EVERYONE likes, so don’t even go there.)
We are constantly being self-challenged by other artists, by our own mind-models, and by what we THINK are hordes of haters, but in reality, are mostly a figment of our overly active imagination.
And the constant challenge from strangers and people who do not even know us is in no way connected to our creation.
Sometimes they just don’t like you. Hey, it happens.
Creation happens outside of our small concerns, outside of our criticisms both self or other, and outside of our detractors.
The more we let go of what we “should” be doing, the farther outside of our comfort zone and creative circle we go.
“Should” is a terrible word.
Take a moment and go “should” something.
We’ll wait.
What did you do?
What does ‘should’ look like?
Other than to remind us it is a good idea to always be in the right lane while driving and other things of a practical nature, the insidiousness of what we ‘should’ do is so prevalent we do not even think about it.
You should do this.
You should do that.
You shouldn’t make this, or shoot that, or not use this rule, or try to… bah!
Sure… you should! (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)
Absolutely do that. Absolutely do what everyone else says not to. Do it with glee. Do it with purpose.
Sure it didn’t work for them… but they are not you.
The “normal” path may not be the path for you.
Perhaps yours takes a different route, with different tidbits of learning along the way. Perhaps you put it all together in a far different way than everyone else did.
Or maybe you just found one little thing that works for you.
And really, ‘should’ comes from that place within us that wants to constantly compare our work with someone else.
“I should learn how to process like that guy.”
“She gets a lot of clients with those kinds of shots, I should do them as well.”
“If I get this gig, I should shoot it as he did.”
Conventional wisdom.
We may be confronted at this point with the false truth that we need to follow conventional wisdom.
“Conventional wisdom” is what tells us is normal. It is based on the lowest common denominator of thought processes and then filtered through a lot of ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda crap to come out the other side with no heart or passion.
And after all of that, conventional wisdom is usually wrong.
And it is always boring.
Man cannot fly.
Women are not capable of flying an airplane.
We will always have Passenger Pigeons.
President Hillary Clinton.
Conventional wisdom is certainly conventional, but it is certainly not wisdom, it is conjecture at best, simple deduction of intellectual pablum at worse.
And in the arts, it is deadly. Absolutely deadly to art, passion, and creativity.
No one wants to create stuff that conventional wisdom says is pretty good.
“Hi, I am an artist and I make stuff that is focused on the lowest common denominator of taste, and absolutely everybody loves it.” Heck, even Sara Lee has haters.
Not a good plan.
Begin to see your art as something that you must do, but not something that you ‘should’ do. What you must do will always be more productive because it is an active verb, not something that we really cannot explain.
Open yourself up to new possibilities.
Open up to new processes, POVs, parameters, and those weird moments when the camera catches something totally unique… that image you want to trash, but cannot seem to bear doing it because it has that… what’s it called… bit of… hmmm.
Find something to add to the recipe. Add a pinch of this or a spoonful of that.
Stop comparing your work to others… stop comparing their work to yours.
Stop asking for free validation, and look for more creation of art regardless of the interaction.
Doing the work is far more important than basking in the laurels of 50 likes on social media.
Work is its own reward in this business because the work begets more work, and the skill acquisition begets more skill acquisition.
And we can become less stressed, and more relaxed with the constant changes in our own creative comfort zone.
Time for a Sunday afternoon beer.
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Don, Great post. Back in my NLP days we spent a lot of time talking about the limiting nature of "modal operators of necessity" should, shouldn't. must, must, must not, have to, and so on. One of the useful responses is, "what would happen if you didn't?" It can be freeing and it can lead to a litany of excuses like, I'll die, someone will hate me, I won't be accepted or what ever. In all cases it generally gathers useful information, that upon further examination, leads to transforming the mode of thinking from one of "necessity" to one of opportunity.
On a different note, and I am not sure if this is relevant. When I received this In the Frame from Substack, it did not format well in Outlook. It did not automatically screen wrap and I had to scroll back and forth horizontally to read the post. I wonder if it SHOULD wrap :-)