iPic

Been a quiet few weeks, photographically. I did get an iphone and have been playing around with the photo apps available for it. Finding I can get quite interesting effects, from such a terrible little lens. The constraints of the format and features can work well, with care. It has taken some effort to work out what the good apps are and how to compose with it. Seems to do well with subjects that are often seen from other krappy cameras, big, bold, simple compositions. Maybe time to pick up the real camera again and see what's going on with that.

I did a Susan Burnstine 'visual narratives' workshop a few weeks ago, that frustrated me quite a bit. Not due to anything I really learned on the workshop, just confusion about what I really want to take pictures of or what direction I want to go in. I've spent the time since then going in a totally different direction, trying to learn to play guitar. Maybe that'll feed back into the picture taking eventually. For now it is a lot of fun and a different form of creative outlet. Last year's working through 'the Artist's Way' exercises kept coming up with questions about music and a desire to learn to play something, just took me a while.

an exercise in two parts

Reading a couple of posts by Paul Lester and Anita Jesse triggered this. I'm going to be light in details in this first post, deliberately. This is part of one of the more eye-opening exercises I did on a recent workshop.

What was the first two dimensional piece of art that really had a strong influence on you?

You might need to sit and think quietly about it for 5 minutes to really get back into your past and think about the first image that got under your skin. It might be a photograph, a painting, it might be a 'cat in the hat' book you loved, or that caterpillar with holes in the pages. But if you give it some quiet thought there is probably one image back in they dusty places in your mind that stands out as the early moment of revelation or awe.

The second thing to consider is what would be the first photograph that really clicked with you and made you want to pick up a camera.

Give it a bit of thought. You certainly don't have to post here. This is not a test and there aren't correct answers. No point in trying to come up with some impressive response. Just think about it and maybe write down the one or two sources that come to mind.

survived the Summer

Another Summer spent in photographic aestivation. But again, Autumn is approaching. Temperatures are dipping under 100F at least before lunch time. I'm starting to feel guilty about this abandoned blog and wanting to write. I attended a really inspiring photography group this evening, that kicked off various ideas in my head. I've got a week off next week, to explore some of those ideas and I'm all fired up and ready to go. Next Friday the Texas Photographic Society international competition opens and I have an image on display, after a couple of years of trying to get in. Things are ticking along nicely. Time to start blogging again.

I've been trying to work out in my head what to do with all the triathlon pictures I've been taking. Finally started to edit them and try to select some and tell a story. Working on what that story might be. Thinking it will be more of a multimedia approach than I'd initially planned. Time to do some more audio work.

taking the narrative machete to the democratic jungle

Attended the Alec Soth lecture at the Austin Center of Photography last night. They are doing a fantastic job for such a young organization, getting in great photographers who are giving interesting talks. Alec Soth talked about his ennui with photography as a medium. Starting out quite frustrated and negative about image making. Partly this was in the context of what he called the democratic jungle, riffing on William Eggleston's idea of the democratic forest. That everything is equally important as a subject and everything is up for having pictures taken. No need for much in the way of subject selection or thought - everything is a viable subject. In the same context, he showed the 2-billionth picture that's been photographed and uploaded to flickr - it looked a lot like an Eggleston image. This morning I had a look. They've passed 3 billion images now (some time in 2008 - shown above on the right) Facebook has over 10 billion pictures. Ten billion pictures.

As he tried to lighten the dark mood, he proposed that he thinks the narrative machete is the way out of this democratic jungle. That using photography to tell stories and create sequences of images is the only way forward, to do anything interesting. There was a section of 'understanding comics' shown to support this and then off to the portraiture. I'd looked through a lot of his portraits again, before going along to the talk. I'd been struck by how just slightly out of the normal each of the subjects were, often in their placement or relationship with the camera. He described much of his portrait process as really trying not to connect with the subject. Working with a large format camera, hiding under the fabric, not talking much. Waiting until the subject disconnects and withdraws into their own thoughts, before taking the pictures. He described trying to not take a picture of the person, but of the space between the person and the camera. That does a good job of describing what I'd felt was slightly odd about all the portraits. The disconnect with the subject, viewer and photographer, that repeats in his portraits.

He also delved into various parts of his published work, describing the process he follows to find images (something of a freeform word association with a slightly odd twist) and how those themes repeat throughout his work. It was interesting to hear how he uses overarching, obvious themes to help explain the work, even when often his own personal motivation is something quite different. This seems to come from early shows that he had a hard time explaining. So something like 'sleeping by the Mississippi' is superficially about that river, but mostly he's trying to explore other concepts - that are quite visible in the images. Similarly with Niagara. All in all, a fascinating and insightful chat about photography. Inspired me to try harder and depressed me about the whole state of photography in equal measure.

I think the ACP is doing a great job. Mary Ellen Mark talked about how great things were in the past and complained about how things are, how frustrated she is now - towards the end of a career. Alec Soth was much more interesting. He's at the middle and currently at the height of his career, 1 year after being accepted at Magnum as a full member. He just talked about how things are, exposing all the troubling flaws in this easy access visual art and describing his way forward. Next up, in September, Elliott Erwitt.

life/work

Sad to hear this week that Bill Jay died in Costa Rica a couple of days ago. I always got a great deal from his End Notes in Lenswork magazine. He seemed to have a more grounded, sensible approach to the art and craft of photography than many. The book he co-authored with David Hurn, "On Being a Photographer: A Practical Guide" is also a classic, full of useful experience (available again soon from Lenswork publishing but out of stock for now). I spent a bit of time today going through the many essays available on his site - well worth taking the time to look. In particular, the piece titled life/work struck a chord for me. It seems like the best advice I've heard on finding a subject. Worth a read.

Engine 2

Well, Amanda and I have been on the Engine 2 diet now for almost a whole week. I'm continually surprised about how good the food tastes and how full I feel. So much so that it provoked me to make a self-portrait - something I haven't done for a while now. Inspiration is everywhere...

cut off an ear

Just finished listening to Jeff Curto's latest podcast on project discovery and planning. I have a lot of sympathy for the approach described, but I don't think it works too well, at least not for me. I have a long academic background and an engineering bent, so I'm very used to the sorts of techniques that Jeff describes. But I've tried them when it comes to being creative and coming up with photographic projects and always find myself going nowhere. For years I tried variations of this approach, making lists, planning audiences, working out what it was all about. I'd get to the end of that process and find I didn't have anywhere to go, nothing interesting to shoot or do.

In some ways, I think these processes try to model or force something that is really an emergent property. Things happen, ideas occur, making lists or drawing audience charts isn't likely to lead you to something original or entertaining, I think it'll just lead you somewhere you've been before. Something you've seen before. I think the reality is both a lot harder and much simpler. Ideas come about all the time - the trick is to be open and paying attention to them. Write them down. Capture things that you can't help but be interested in. Don't worry about an audience. In fact, that seems like the quickest way to kill it - worrying about who wants to see it, before you even know what it looks like. Create the pictures you can't help but make. Shoot the subjects that just won't get out of your head, whether you think anyone else in the world wants to see it or not. Find a passion and follow it. That one thing that you just can't get out of your head. The most painful question to read or hear asked of an artist is 'where do your ideas come from?' The answer is almost always the same - they have no clue and they come from everywhere, all the time. I think if you have ideas, you have ideas. I've talked to people about this - some people have them all the time, others almost never. Really I think that some people are tuned in to pay attention to the ideas they do have, while others don't pay attention or don't consider them worth thinking about, or classifying as an 'idea'. Or maybe it really is a totally different way of thinking that some people have and some don't. But if you have an idea, you'll know it. You won't be able to ignore it. You'll have to photograph it.

O. Rufus Lovett had that drive, when he kept going back to Weeping Mary in Texas. My friend Karen had it when she moved from New York to a small country town for months to find out what makes it tick. You just have to find that thing that keeps tickling at the back of your head saying 'take my picture' then follow that voice. Audience be damned. If it is good enough, people will want to see it. Not because you made it for them, but because you made it for you. Passion/ obsession combined with voice or vision is what you need to find. I'm not sure that it comes on demand.

Paul will no doubt find this funny, given that he described my approach in much the same terms that I'm pointing out problems I have with Jeff's method. I suspect I'm somewhere between the two. Paul likes to see the projects that have already happened, in his previous work - the truly emergent approach. Billie describes something similar when she references David Bayles &Ted Orland's book Art & Fear and learning from the work itself. I still try to have some structure - in fact I've got most time for the idea of a mission statement for a project. But really I think it should be a mission question - what's the driving question that you are trying to explore or answer. A statement seems too final - too preconceived. The pictures already planned and storyboarded. A question, like Tharp's spine, is the thing that you can keep coming back to, to guide the project along. Maybe it isn't even visible at all in the final images - it doesn't have to hit people over the head immediately. But the question or the spine helps keep you on track. A mission statement again seems to be too defining in the direction that will be followed, the pictures that will be taken, too much pre-planning, pre-visualising, not enough response to what's in front of you.

I went to a talk by Ed Ruscha this evening. The most useful and inspiring comment was when he was asked what advice he'd give for how to be an artist, and he responded with a Max Ernst quote, along the lines of 'cut off an ear'. I think that maybe neatly sums up the whole thing. Creativity happens. Ideas happen. Art happens. It maybe isn't found in questions and charts and graphs and planning. It isn't that easy and it isn't that hard. It just is. You can look back at what worked and try to codify it, but that doesn't mean you can repeat the same steps again and end up with a similar result.

What do you think about this? Where do your projects come from?

finding the spine

Had an enjoyable lunch a few weeks ago with a friend who is a writer. I've been trying to make the time to have lunch with people in different creative fields, to try to explore a bit what makes them tick and how they work. She is currently finishing up a book and it was great to get to hear about her process and progress on the project.

One thing that we talked about was how she got started on the book and how she'd been told to find out what the question was. This would be the motivating question for the whole project. Twyla Tharp talked about a similar idea in her book 'The Creative Habit' when she brings up the notion of the spine of a creative piece. In both cases, the fundamental question or the spine idea of a project are the thing you can keep coming back to when you feel you've lost your way. It is the scaffolding or foundation of a project that gets you started, even if everything else really branches quite far away or heads off in a different direction. The spine might not even be visible in the final work but it is what helps to keep you on track and bind everything together along the way. These core ideas don't need to be complicated, in fact I think there is a value in keeping it simple. As an example, the spine idea for my ironman triathlon project is to show the everyman aspect of the participants. That idea helps keep the project grounded, to try to show the normality surrounding the huge task the participants have set themselves.

I was intrigued to find this same idea being expressed by two different people within a couple of weeks. Maybe this could be one of the design patterns for creativity that Merlin Mann is looking out for? Certainly it is a simple notion but it also seems to be a fundamental concept. Find the spine or driving question and keep it somewhere you can see it every day as you work on the project. This might also be a good starting point for thinking about a SoFoBoMo project - discover what the spine of the idea is that you want to work on and run with it. Last year I wanted to explore different expressions and how quickly those change. I wanted to show that a photograph freezes one of those instants but that it really doesn't hold any truth about the subject. The spine helps with the shooting and also helps with the editing. Any time you feel stuck it is the thing to go back to.

zoe & bios

One notion that stood out for me in The Creative Habit was a section describing her frustration with trying to create narrative works of dance. Twyla Tharp is known for her abstract, conceptional dance pieces. At one point she tried to create works that had more of a sense of story and flow to them and found that she really struggled to create in that style. While reading Carl Kerenyi's Dionysos she was introduced to the Greek concepts of zoe, which deals with the whole world (it is a root of the word zoology) and bios, which deals with individual narrative stories (a root of biography). She came to the conclusion that she works well in the more abstract, global zoe style but really didn't have a knack for dealing with the bios. Emily Shur appears to express a similar concern, that everyone tells her that she should be working on photographic projects as the way to grow, but her mind just doesn't work that way. She'd much rather explore the whole world and find the pieces that interest her, rather than settle in to focus on a bios narrative photo-essay. She seems to be finding gallery representation or acceptance difficult as a result because everyone wants to see projects presented in the bios mode of creation, while her approach is looking at the whole zoe.

I've noticed this myself if you look at artworks in a coffee store - those typically aren't the result of an Art world selection process and often display an ecclectic, disconnected mix of images, photographs or paintings. Often the greatest hits of the particular artist selected to display images (or who asked the cafe owner first). It is unusual to see any cohesive story or message in those images, other than the common creator of the work. Art gallery shows are almost always in the bios mode of a cohesive body of work on a particular theme or topic. Still often the same creator for all the images, but a much more heavily edited and selected body of work.

Perhaps some people are just wired to look at the whole rather than pull out individual stories and follow them. That's just how their creative DNA is. Projects and themes just might not be right for them as a means to creating great photographs and they could embrace that, rather than always feeling jealous or frustrated.

ideas for lunch

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

A while ago, I pointed towards a link suggesting ways to become a successful entrepreneur by having lunch with people who've already done well in business and listening to what they have to say. I took the idea and started applying it to my creative development. Over the last few months I've taken a few friends and acquaintances out to lunch and pestered them with questions about 'how they do it'. So far it has been great and well worth the time. I've had lunch with a couple of writers and photographers and received some really valuable perspectives. I also explored some of the projects I'm working on with them and got some great feedback.

One of them did ask me if I was concerned about sharing my ideas before the projects were finished. I think there are two approaches to this; one is to treat everything as a secret. The other is to shout the ideas from the rooftops and let as many people give you input as you can stand. I've found every time I involve another person in my work, I learn something new or get some insight that I'd never have thought of if I'd kept it all to myself. Often I think we are worried that someone will steal our ideas—but really the ideas aren't what is valuable, it is the execution of the idea that matters. Getting help there is what you need. There is a great creative energy that bounces back and forth when you get another person involved in your process. Also I've found that sharing your hopes and dreams with other people can often help you towards them. Someone will know a person who can help you, make a useful connection for you, move you forward.

All for the price of lunch—good value if you ask me.

fear, creativity, genius

Muses, genius and other sources of inspiration or blame. Don't be afraid. Just show up. Do your job. Keep showing up.

the war of art

Just finished reading the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Like many creativity books it does well describing the barriers and frustrations that all artists seem to share, but peters out when it tries to provide solutions. I think that's because the solutions are all fundamentally very simple and at the same time intensely personal. Pressfield describes all of the frustrations and barriers to creative work as being Resistance. Others call this fear, or procrastination. All the doubting voices and things that stop you starting or help you find something else to do. All the same thing really. His solution is to treat the thing you want to do as a job. You have to turn up, if you want to or not. Day in. Day out. Just get on with it, like you do with your real job. Do the work and the muse will come, the creativity will happen.

So productivity isn't a surrogate for creativity. It is not that we try be productive to be creative. Rather, productivity is a requirement for creativity. You have to be doing the work, putting the time in, for your creative sparks to have a chance to happen. The fickle flashes of brilliance don't come if you aren't vested in the process of making the bad stuff or everyday good stuff along the way to greatness. Turn up. Do the work. Each day. Every day.

odd synchronisity for the day

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

- The War of Art, Steven Pressfield

I posted 'resistance is futile' this morning, wondering about the twisting and turning people go through when faced with even fairly simple constraints. Today at lunchtime, I was going to eat alone and decided to pick up a copy of 'The War of Art' by Steven Pressfield, on the recommendation of Kirk Tuck, from his blog. Reading the book over lunch, I was amused to find out that Steven defines all the causes of procrastination, fear & doubt in art making as capital-R Resistance. A small coincidence, maybe, but maybe I'm on the right track. The book seems good so far. You can read the first few chapters, here.

eye in the sky

This shot continues a theme or merging of influences. I've found I really enjoy images shot totally out of focus. This is a technique that seems to sharply divide viewers. Some love it, some hate it, few are left ambivalent. There is a touch of impressionist painting in the back of my mind when I take these images, in fact trying to emulate that painting style is where I started shooting out of focus in the first place. Given Monet's many images of the houses of Parliament, this one seems particularly apt and was the reason I started shooting that way in London. This particular shot is also heavily influenced by a Keith Carter image, of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, shot through winter trees, with very selective focus. I've been down this path before, with the Zilker Christmas tree in Austin.

For a while I've been bothered about copying or appropriating ideas from other places, thinking I needed original ideas, or new and novel concepts of my own. Over time I've come to realise that borrowing or being influenced is the way the world works. I saw this earlier in the week, looking at a self-portrait of and by Rembrandt, in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Other paintings in the same room listed out wholesale lifting of compositions and poses from other older works. There is nothing new under the sun, after all. But if you take it and make it your own, you can't fail to find something new in the old ideas. Twyla Tharp talks about how any creative idea just needs two simpler ideas to be put together in an new way, to make a big idea. It doesn't have to be created out of thin air.

photography connects us with the world

National Geographic editor, David Griffin, presents some of the power of photojournalism and how photography can be used to tell stories, in this TED presentation from last year. Some great images and intriguing background. Well worth the time to watch.

patterns for creativity

Merlin Mann on creativity and common approaches. Also a mini-review of the Twyla Tharp book 'the creative habit' that I've been avidly reading.

good taste

When what you are doing just isn't as good as you aspire to be, you just have to keep working at it. Making radio shows, writing, taking pictures. Anything creative. You'll be doing it because you like it and have an idea what good is. You'll be a long way from that at first and for a long while to come. The only solution is to keep going - or quit.

technical smechnical

Mark made a good comment on an earlier post:

It is so much simpler to compare and contrast feature sets between cameras or software. Or to discuss technical issues regarding any photograph. But it is always so much more difficult to discuss the less subjective measurements of photography and maybe that is why we gravitate to the objective ones.

This is demonstrably true. Many of the well known names in photography make their living teaching the technical aspects and mostly ignoring the more interesting but harder to express subjective aspects of creativity and photography. I've only found a few rare individuals interested in talking about the harder to grapple with concepts of the why of photography, rather than the how. Freeman Patterson always touches on this in his books. Craig Tanner often teaches this in person and occasionally in his podcasts. If you are aware of other good resources or teachers that focus less on the technical and explore the more subjective aspects of photography, I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

I think it is rare, not just because it is subjective, but because it is difficult. You have to be willing to expose yourself to harsh comments and opinions on things you actually care about. Few people care too much on a disagreement about sharpening techniques or how to adjust exposure. There are well worn and understood standard approaches to composition and basics of visual language that are mostly accepted and agreed upon. White balance and aperture priority are fixed concepts, not really open to much debate. But try to talk about what matters and people will explain to you in detail and at length why your world view is wrong and doesn't match theirs. It takes a certain personality to want to share and keep sharing in the face of that, even when the rewards might be so much greater, in actually connecting with people.

where do ideas come from II

Instructive podcast from Brooks Jensen on the need for single images. He talks about how project ideas tend to come from those single images. This has been something I've been rolling around in my head so it is timely to hear these thoughts from Brooks. (an interesting synchronicity right there and this is something I'll come back to in later posts)

So rather than trying to conceive project ideas in a vacuum or as an intellectual exercise, go shoot, shoot, shoot. Make those single images and follow the interest. At the same time, pay careful attention to any common themes or ideas that tickle your imagination. Then persue those threads of images and work hard to create related work. Turn the singular good images that spark your imagination into projects. Find the inspiration from the images you already make. This might be a more fruitful approach.

where do your ideas come from?

I seem to over-think project ideas. Kill them before I even get around to starting them. Least that's my current theory about my lack of progress. I see in my mind's eye that the results wont be interesting enough, even before I start taking the pictures. I need to find a way to quiet those nagging doubts in my head that don't let me start. Well, I start, often enough, but the follow-through isn't there. Shorter projects work well because there isn't so much time for the dislike of the results to set in. I never feel the ideas are interesting enough, or worthwhile, or that anyone will care to look at them.

I've been journaling each morning for the last week, trying to find a way forward. That worked well in the past - I think I'm at the whining self-pitying phase at the moment. It'll pass.