Postcards from the Creative Journey

1188 Reclaiming Your Photographic Mojo First Published 4/9/2017

It struck me after last week’s post that it was just about half of what was needed. I suggested that it might be valuable to your creativity to lay off photography for a bit. Well, if you take some time off from photography, you will need to motivate yourself to get back in the groove of being creative or getting your photo mojo working again. None of us want to stop photography completely.

We all own some photographic turf. There’s a subject that we love to photograph more than anything else. Start making those photographs; landscapes, table top still lifes, flowers, macro, whatever it is you love the most get that in front of your camera. The idea is to do something you love and do it successfully. A “quick win” is what you’re after, something that you can look at and say, “Yeah, I can make this type of photograph and make it well.” It’s a pump priming project to get you back in the world with a camera in your hand. It’s a kind of warm up project that will get you doing photography again.

Some folks like new photo gear. While it could be expensive, there’s nothing like trying out a new accessory to get you back out into the world with a camera in your hand. You can test to your hearts content if that’s what it takes to get you back in the world with a camera in hand. But be cautioned, endless gear testing is not really photography. It’s an evaluation of tools to help you make real photographs. The goal is to make real photographs again. You may get something new, do some testing and then figure out how to use it to make photographs.

What’s your next project? What were you thinking about when you took some creative time off? Look at that project again with fresh eyes. Do you have a list of projects you want to do? If not, make that list. Then pick one to complete. Look outside for some projects. Do any of your local arts groups have a call for entry? Enter that contest. It has requirements, a deadline and will force you to do something. Do you need some new photos around the house? There’s another project for you. Starting to get the idea?

You’ve had enough time off. Go out there and make some art.

1187 A Project Completion Conundrum

I don’t think that I can ever finish a project. That doesn’t mean that I will never reach a stopping point, or reaching a point where the work is ready to be shared with others. It’s just that I keep finding new images to add to an existing project. Most of my projects are in one place at a specific time to tell a story. I complete the story and publish the project. Later, I find additional images that are part of the same project. This happened a lot when I was using multiple formats. I have large format negatives and 35-millimeter negatives of the same place. I recently found a few negatives from an already completed project. There are not enough rediscovered images for their own project, but I “finished” the project they should have been in.

The great thing about distributing your work as PDFs on a website is that you can always revise what has been published by adding new images. That can't be done with a photograph on the wall exhibit. 

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This late arrival is now included in "A Place to Fish" in the July 2021 issue of The Lipka Journal. 

1186 Give It A Rest, Will Ya? First Published 4/2/2017

In the quest to advance our personal photography, we are always looking for the next thing to do to improve our technical skills, seek inspiration for future work or plan out projects that have moved beyond the concept stage.

Sometimes we need to take some time to recharge our creative batteries. Not “doing” is as valuable as “doing.” Hitting a creative wall or having a case of “photographer’s block” is something that happens when we’ve been working intensely for a period of time. Stopping work to let our subconscious creative thoughts ferment and bubble up to our consciousness is a great thing. Studies have shown than constant working or thinking without a break of any type results in lower productivity and less creative thought. When your mind stops working, listen to it and take some time off.

So, give it a rest for bit to help improve your creativity. Enjoy the vacation from photography, but don’t be gone so long you forgot how much you like to make photographs.

1185 A Complete Transformation

In a recent trip to Eastern Montana for a family event, we spent a lot of time driving from one town to the next. It’s easy to do in Montana because there is a lot of space between towns. We were passing through a small valley, and I noticed a wonderful scene. Because we were on a schedule, we could not stop to make the photograph.

I thought maybe I should come back the next day and make that photograph.

Then I thought to myself, “Why?” Would I be willing to spend an hour and a half driving to make one image and some variations? The killer question was simply, “How would this image fit into a past, current or future project?” In the past week I have driven past many wonderful scenes of Montana, and I was faced with a whole series of questions., “Do I really need another ‘one of’ landscape photograph? Where does this scene belong in my oeuvre?  Do I need another western landscape as part of my photographic life, or do I need a new project? How can I interpret this scene in a way that is beautiful, meaningful and revelatory about life? What is an oeuvre anyway?

I didn’t have an immediate answer. It may take a while to figure out what the answer should be. We continued driving to our destination.

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PS. That's what part of Eastern Montana looks like. 

1184 A New Skill to Learn First Published 4/23/2017

We know have lots of images to choose from. In fact, some consider the number of photographs being created an assault on the senses. Internet facts abound on the astronomical number of images we create because digital photographs can be created so easily.

While the “ten best photographs” still number ten, one must wade through an exponentially larger number of ill-considered images to sort out the ten best. Photographer’s output used to be limited due to the cost of film, processing and printing. I just checked and Kodak 5x7 TMAX 400 is about $3.60 per sheet! When I was using that film, it was much less expensive and I edited, pre-visualized and triple checked my exposure calculations to avoid an ill-considered exposure. With digital photography and the zero cost to make an Image, we have reaped a whirlwind of images to edit. To get to a great photograph today, selection and editing of images after they are made is probably the most important task photographers need to master.

1183 No Immediate Use

Selecting images for an image suite or a project requires a larger number of images to choose from. When I look at the number of images that I don’t use, I have to keep reminding myself that if I have no immediate use for an image, that does not mean there will never be a use for that image in some image suite, project or maybe even a book.

The thought is, that you do have to continually review your images to see if there is a need for the images that didn't make it into a project the first time around. 

 

1182 What Do You Do Until Then? First Published 5/28/2017

I downloaded “Wear Good Shoes: Advice from Magnum Photographers” and found it to be an inspiring collection of thoughts from some of the world’s best photojournalists. The great part about this document was that it really never mentioned anything technical about photography. (Well, except for the advice about shoes, I guess.) If I had to sum it up in just a few words the essence of the advice was to cultivate a broad interest in the arts and follow your passion for photography by photographing every day.

Lots of people say do what you love and follow your passion. What if what you love doesn’t pay enough for your food, clothing and shelter? While I do love making photographs, for most of my life I had to provide for my wife and two daughters who really, really wanted to live indoors, wear shoes and eat regularly. My photographs weren’t going to make that happen.

I made my photographic life part of the life I needed to live to support my family.

1181 The Paradox of Contemporary Photography

It took a long time to create analog photographs. In order to assure our work was long-lived we developed our negatives and our prints to exacting archival standards. That most of these images should have been immediately forgotten was a point we never thought about. Archival, permanence and our legacy were important. We wanted our photographs to last forever.

Digital images for the web are created immediately and processed quickly, if not done immediately by your camera before you can upload the file to your social media account. We have achieved image immortality because the internet never forgets. You may go back and look at a blog post from 2010 and everything is (still) there.

Today’s photographs are created immediately and then immediately forgotten because the half life of an image on the internet is a day or two. The images might be forgettable to people, but remembered by the internet forever.

1180 The Devil in the Details First published 12/6/2020

Some folks have taken the efficiency of digital editing and turned it on its head. Originally designed to make photographic editing quick, effective and incredibly precise, some are using digital editing to postpone completion of images. Take the incredibly precise and numerous digital editing tools available in Photoshop. I have seen explanations of digital editing techniques used on one digital file going through multiple processing steps with mind numbing details and sweating out the details at the pixel level.

Why?

Viewers can’t see the details at that level, much less care about the time and effort spent in making the image “just so.” The only people that will know about it are people the photographer tells about it. Maybe they will care about the technical details in kind of a technical one-upmanship way.

But what this fuss and bother about inconsequential (invisible?) details does is postpone the completion of an image. So finish the image and move on to the next image.

1179 Feet of Clay

It’s always a bit disheartening when you find out details about your hero’s life. We experience it all the time because we often mistakenly assign our values to a person we admire. If we like them, or what they do, they should be like us, right? It is disappointing to find out you’re wrong.

When I began photography while in college the pre-eminent student photographer was all over campus with his Hasselblad, photographing for the paper, the yearbook and anyone else that needed on-campus photographs. My fellow photography students were impressed because "he had a ‘blad, man." (OK, for you younger readers, beginners used 35mm while the “pros” carried the medium format Hasselblad.)

I happened to run into him decades later and asked him how his photography was going. He replied that he sold all his gear right after graduation and got a job.

“What about photography?” I asked. His reply was, “Oh, I just used it to meet girls.”

I don’t know whether my disappointment occurred because his commitment to photography wasn’t long term, or I never thought of using my camera to meet girls.

The pantheon of former heroes and inspirational personalities continues to grow.

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Here's what I was photographing in college, instead of using my camera to meet girls. 

1178 On Being a “Non Revenue Photographer” First Published 12/27/2020

I am a “Non-Revenue Photographer” because I do not generate income from my photographic skills. If I spend money on things photographic it’s because I think it will help me make better images or present them to a larger audience. This causes me to think twice (at least) about investing in my photographic world. Adding equipment, software, or something else to help me create art does require some self-examination and justification prior to purchase.

On the other hand, I don’t have to work diligently to make the purchase “pay off” by creating income from photography.

1177 Cocoon Of Calm

My favorite photographic time is when I am surrounded by a cocoon of calm. It’s the time when you sink into the (or maybe elevate to) surroundings and become part of the space you are photographing. This happens just around you. Your surroundings may be chaotic, noisy, and disorganized, but you are in the middle of this with your camera and your cocoon of calm that refuses to participate in the disorganized mess around you. You may also be way out in the boondocks photographing the landscape, but that cocoon of calm will find you and embrace you with the serenity you need to make great photographs.

I wish there was an easy way to find this cocoon and bring it with me whenever I head out into the world with my camera.