How does a person become more creative in their photography?
I was wondering if you had an opinion, suggestion or process that you would like to share. I think most people would like to be as creative as possible, so I believe it's worthwhile to put some effort towards that goal.
I used to work as a "industrial photographer" and one neat thing about that experience is that you get exposed to a lot of different situations that you can learn from, and I believe, apply in an innovative way to other areas.
For example, this area, the "creative" approach. A process that the company employed, before
implementing a different management system, was to take their entire management team off-site
to a totally different reality ( a rural resort setting ). Once there, the people went through a bunch of different exercises, as individuals and in rotating small groups. This lasted several weeks.
I think most participants thought the main reasoning behind the setup was to remove everyone from the distraction of the work environment etc. But, in my opinion the goal setup was to promote creativity.
What they did was put people in situations that were way out of their comfort zones. In the various games and exercises top managers who were normally THE decision makers , instead were relegated to being followers, people who normally worked alone , now became part of a group, and at times had to lead the groups.
The whole idea was to get people out of their comfort zones. Challenge the status quo and put people in situations where they really weren't confident that they had and knew the successful path based on previous experience.
I think the same technique could be used in our photographic approach. No, I'm not saying we all
pack up our stuff and head to some remote setting, but rather to place yourself outside of you own comfort zone. Place yourself in situations where you can't really be very confident of the desired
result because you are really not sure you know exactly what you are doing, due to lack of experience etc.
A simple way to do this, in my opinion, is to stop, look at your current approach and do exactly the opposite. Many times going in a complete opposite direction can lead you further on down the path to your ultimate goal.
PS I should add, I don't mean reverse your "process" forever, just give it an honest effort for a little bit and see what happens.
Posted by Adam Schallau on October 20, 2006 at 6:19 PM
The whole idea was to get people out of their comfort zones. Challenge the status quo and put people in situations where they really weren't confident that they had and knew the successful path based on previous experience.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I have started to experiment with other types of photography including architectural work and portraits, and I'd like to get into aviation photography as well. For the longest time I was stuck in a rut only doing landscapes (which I love), but expanding into other types of photography has helped me expand my vision and it has helped keep me from getting burned out.
Posted by Richard Wong on October 20, 2006 at 6:40 PM
I just read Guy Tal's newest NPN article, and I think that would be a good place to start. It is a great article in my opinion.
Ok, thanks Richard, I wasn't aware of it. I guess I should actually read the magazine once in a while! Tim
Edit - I read the article, and agree it is very good. Timely, in a way for me too, because the "opposite" approach for me, that I'm attempting at the moment is to try and incorperate some techniques of portrait type photography into my work. Part of that is knowing your subject, in my opinion, perhaps previsualizing, etc. These are things I just don't do, normally. Tim
Tim,
I fully subsribe your ideas. I belive that, even if there is something that we love, such as landscapes, nature, etc, it is really exiciting to explore, to do photographs in "different" sectors/location. It is a wounderful challenge to me and I feel that my photography is "growing". I attach a sample of my reaseach in "parallel" photography world: this is my vision of the famous Trinitià dei Monti (the spanish steps, in Rome)... I like it a lot and it is really different from what I do normally....
Posted by Gary Minish on October 21, 2006 at 4:42 AM
If you want to really exercise and expand the right side of your brain, just join this group (dpchallenge) and actively participate. Be prepared to spend quite a bit of time and effort though! I subscribed at one time and still get their weekly newsletter with the results of each challenge. The creativity and ingenuity continues to amaze me. I wish I had more time to participate. I know it would be very good for me.
Posted by Carl Donohue on October 22, 2006 at 7:25 PM
Hey Tim
You're worrying about stuff you don't need to worry about.
Carl said " Hey Tim You're worrying about stuff you don't need to worry about.
What is "more creative"?
Up above I said " I was wondering if you had an opinion, suggestion or process that you would like to share. I think most people would like to be as creative as possible, so I believe it's worthwhile to put some effort towards that goal."
I think it's worth the effort because my definition of being "creative" is being open minded enough to look for new possibilities and change. Having a sense of discovery.
" Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different" - Albert Szent Gyorgyi
Posted by Carl Donohue on October 23, 2006 at 12:46 PM
Hey Tim,
I understand where you're coming from - I just don't think creativity is something we can effectively quanitfy or measure. It just is. I don't think we become "more creative". Nor do we need to. We simply create. That's enough.
Carl,
Sorry, I just can't agree with that. I think that creativity , at least in the context that I think of it, related to being open minded ,can be increased and in the case of measuring it, well that's exactly what the company does in the example above. I suppose to be fair they are measuring the effects of it but there is no doubt in my mind that an effect of increased creativity is a resulting increase in productivity and more importantly, job satisfaction.
Can you transpose that to photography? I don't see why not. Although I admit, only a few people responded to my question, if you look at their answers, I think that is a big part of what they are saying.
Another interesting part of that work project is this; they had the people participate in probably dozens of exercises ( I was working , photographing, videotaping etc. I was not a participant but witnessed every session , close to 1000 people in all ) and in every game type exercise the group out performed any individual. For example,they would ask the question " What 10 items would you consider most important to your survival in the event your plane crashed and you could retrieve 10 items from this larger list, rank them in order of importance." Each person would first answer the questions. Then, they would break up into small groups of 5 or 6 and come up with a concensus answer from each group. In every case, including this one , a team score was always higher than any individual score. They had a slogan ," no one of us is as smart as all of us".
What's that got to do with anything, here at NPN? Well, that helps explain why I like to pose these questions in the Discussion Forum, because to me it is much like that group exercise. You get a lot of variety of opinions, various inputs ( except in this particular thread perhaps! :-) ) and a "better" answer. Many times I post a question it's not for my benefit but because I think it might be helpful for people just starting out. However, in this case, I think the question about creativity relates more to people with greater experience because, in my opinion we are more likely to be more set in our ways and resistant to change.
Always interesting to hear your views, thanks, Tim.
Posted by Carl Donohue on October 24, 2006 at 10:11 AM
Hey TIm,
Thanks for the elaboration.
Tim, we, as people, are extremely good at identifying patterns. It's probably what we do best. But what we then do is assign value to those patterns, and that's where things go askew. How does this relate to the topic? Well, it's those assigned values you're looking at when you say we can 'measure' creativity. We can, effectively, measure anything - but how meaningful are those measurements and standards? I'd say they're problematic, not helpful. For one thing, they funnel people towards achieving 'higher scores', which typically means conforming to the patterns and measurements. Ironically, this is, if anything, less 'creative', rather than more. Look at the education system, for example. It doesn't reward folks who stray outside its parameters, it marginalizes and penalizes them. The test you reference above does a similar thing (and FWIW, I can't see how it is related to 'creativity', rather it draws more on experience and acquired knowledge (hence the higher group scores - a real simple study - look at great art from around the world and how much of it was a product of group input and how much a product of an individual?).
But we digress. My point, and I'm being somewhat subtle/vague, is that creativity isn't really what artists need worry about. It's simply creating. Create, and do it with your full attention. Then, create some more. Sure, we can, and should review our efforts sometimes, and acknowledge the work of others, but the grunt work is the process of creating. You do that, and do it with intention and conviction, and everything else will come. Wanna be "more creative"? It starts, and ends, with creating.
Ineresting exchange and thought provoking. Well, here I go again, but I have to agree with both of you. For me it works to create. Just do that. But during or after a class or workshop or a good perusal of NPN photographers' work or reading articles, I come away with new ways of thinking, or a method/procedure that I hadn't thought of, or an "Aha!" moment. I learn from the group new ways of thinking, seeing and putting things togerher as I create. It is valuale to have one's own style as well as input from a group and/or a variety of sources. To me, "more creative" means one has acquired more experience and knowledge and dares to experiment with new ideas wherever they have come from. I "measure" my creativity by looking at my work from years ago compared to more recently. And I'm happy when I see significant changes.
Discussion
11 repliesI was wondering if you had an opinion, suggestion or process that you would like to share. I think most people would like to be as creative as possible, so I believe it's worthwhile to put some effort towards that goal.
I used to work as a "industrial photographer" and one neat thing about that experience is that you get exposed to a lot of different situations that you can learn from, and I believe, apply in an innovative way to other areas.
For example, this area, the "creative" approach. A process that the company employed, before
implementing a different management system, was to take their entire management team off-site
to a totally different reality ( a rural resort setting ). Once there, the people went through a bunch of different exercises, as individuals and in rotating small groups. This lasted several weeks.
I think most participants thought the main reasoning behind the setup was to remove everyone from the distraction of the work environment etc. But, in my opinion the goal setup was to promote creativity.
What they did was put people in situations that were way out of their comfort zones. In the various games and exercises top managers who were normally THE decision makers , instead were relegated to being followers, people who normally worked alone , now became part of a group, and at times had to lead the groups.
The whole idea was to get people out of their comfort zones. Challenge the status quo and put people in situations where they really weren't confident that they had and knew the successful path based on previous experience.
I think the same technique could be used in our photographic approach. No, I'm not saying we all
pack up our stuff and head to some remote setting, but rather to place yourself outside of you own comfort zone. Place yourself in situations where you can't really be very confident of the desired
result because you are really not sure you know exactly what you are doing, due to lack of experience etc.
A simple way to do this, in my opinion, is to stop, look at your current approach and do exactly the opposite. Many times going in a complete opposite direction can lead you further on down the path to your ultimate goal.
PS I should add, I don't mean reverse your "process" forever, just give it an honest effort for a little bit and see what happens.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I have started to experiment with other types of photography including architectural work and portraits, and I'd like to get into aviation photography as well. For the longest time I was stuck in a rut only doing landscapes (which I love), but expanding into other types of photography has helped me expand my vision and it has helped keep me from getting burned out.
Edit - I read the article, and agree it is very good. Timely, in a way for me too, because the "opposite" approach for me, that I'm attempting at the moment is to try and incorperate some techniques of portrait type photography into my work. Part of that is knowing your subject, in my opinion, perhaps previsualizing, etc. These are things I just don't do, normally. Tim
I fully subsribe your ideas. I belive that, even if there is something that we love, such as landscapes, nature, etc, it is really exiciting to explore, to do photographs in "different" sectors/location. It is a wounderful challenge to me and I feel that my photography is "growing". I attach a sample of my reaseach in "parallel" photography world: this is my vision of the famous Trinitià dei Monti (the spanish steps, in Rome)... I like it a lot and it is really different from what I do normally....
You're worrying about stuff you don't need to worry about.
What is "more creative"?
Cheers
Carl
What is "more creative"?
Up above I said " I was wondering if you had an opinion, suggestion or process that you would like to share. I think most people would like to be as creative as possible, so I believe it's worthwhile to put some effort towards that goal."
I think it's worth the effort because my definition of being "creative" is being open minded enough to look for new possibilities and change. Having a sense of discovery.
" Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different" - Albert Szent Gyorgyi
I understand where you're coming from - I just don't think creativity is something we can effectively quanitfy or measure. It just is. I don't think we become "more creative". Nor do we need to. We simply create. That's enough.
Cheers
Carl
Sorry, I just can't agree with that. I think that creativity , at least in the context that I think of it, related to being open minded ,can be increased and in the case of measuring it, well that's exactly what the company does in the example above. I suppose to be fair they are measuring the effects of it but there is no doubt in my mind that an effect of increased creativity is a resulting increase in productivity and more importantly, job satisfaction.
Can you transpose that to photography? I don't see why not. Although I admit, only a few people responded to my question, if you look at their answers, I think that is a big part of what they are saying.
Another interesting part of that work project is this; they had the people participate in probably dozens of exercises ( I was working , photographing, videotaping etc. I was not a participant but witnessed every session , close to 1000 people in all ) and in every game type exercise the group out performed any individual. For example,they would ask the question " What 10 items would you consider most important to your survival in the event your plane crashed and you could retrieve 10 items from this larger list, rank them in order of importance." Each person would first answer the questions. Then, they would break up into small groups of 5 or 6 and come up with a concensus answer from each group. In every case, including this one , a team score was always higher than any individual score. They had a slogan ," no one of us is as smart as all of us".
What's that got to do with anything, here at NPN? Well, that helps explain why I like to pose these questions in the Discussion Forum, because to me it is much like that group exercise. You get a lot of variety of opinions, various inputs ( except in this particular thread perhaps! :-) ) and a "better" answer. Many times I post a question it's not for my benefit but because I think it might be helpful for people just starting out. However, in this case, I think the question about creativity relates more to people with greater experience because, in my opinion we are more likely to be more set in our ways and resistant to change.
Always interesting to hear your views, thanks, Tim.
Thanks for the elaboration.
Tim, we, as people, are extremely good at identifying patterns. It's probably what we do best. But what we then do is assign value to those patterns, and that's where things go askew. How does this relate to the topic? Well, it's those assigned values you're looking at when you say we can 'measure' creativity. We can, effectively, measure anything - but how meaningful are those measurements and standards? I'd say they're problematic, not helpful. For one thing, they funnel people towards achieving 'higher scores', which typically means conforming to the patterns and measurements. Ironically, this is, if anything, less 'creative', rather than more. Look at the education system, for example. It doesn't reward folks who stray outside its parameters, it marginalizes and penalizes them. The test you reference above does a similar thing (and FWIW, I can't see how it is related to 'creativity', rather it draws more on experience and acquired knowledge (hence the higher group scores - a real simple study - look at great art from around the world and how much of it was a product of group input and how much a product of an individual?).
But we digress. My point, and I'm being somewhat subtle/vague, is that creativity isn't really what artists need worry about. It's simply creating. Create, and do it with your full attention. Then, create some more. Sure, we can, and should review our efforts sometimes, and acknowledge the work of others, but the grunt work is the process of creating. You do that, and do it with intention and conviction, and everything else will come. Wanna be "more creative"? It starts, and ends, with creating.
Cheers
Carl