This past weekend I had a long conversation with my friend Ray. You may recall that he was photographing the tulips with me and my friends a couple of months ago. Ray is a sculptor, photographer and artist and I could spend hours talking with him. Our chat this week covered many ideas but the one I wanted to share is about inspiration. Finding inspiration for our photography sometimes has us stumped. We think about traveling to exotic lands where our imagination is stirred and where we believe our creativity will flow freely. For many of us though who aren’t yet living our dream of being full-time photographers, those trips come far and few between. If we sit around and wait for those opportunities, we will run out of fuel. We need to keep the fires burning by feeding the creative juices and one of the best ways to do this is to seek out the stories around you and within you.
Today’s image is for my one mile project. I haven’t posted one in a while so yesterday I headed out to see what June had brought to my neighbourhood. There is a public garden not far from where I live. I call it Jill’s Garden because Jill is the wife of my good friend David W. and she heads up a team of volunteers who look after the garden. They do an amazing job through all the seasons but this is really one of the best times to visit the garden. I love gardens in general because unfortunately all the green thumb genes went to my sister and I have absolutely no skill in this area. And although I don’t really understand what it takes to create a beautiful garden like Jill’s, I do know it takes skill and hard work and that makes me appreciate even the simpliest of flowers there.
This image isn’t one of my best and that, I think, is also the point. There are few truly great images but to get to a place of being able to make even good images, we need to keep working at our craft and refining our vision. If we only create images when we feel inspired or when we think they’re good enough for others to see, we are only fairweather artists and that is no artist at all.
It’s a pretty darn good image to me and I’m not looking for points.
I agree with you and Ray, inspiration is sometimes a fleeting thing in my life. I find ways to nurture inspiration with things such as much needed rest, conversation with a friend, a self assignment, putting on a macro lens for the day, a good book, finding a new photographers website, learning about a subject I want to work on, etc. It would be interesting to see what sort of a list we could all come up with.
Reading over my post, Monte, I realize it was unclear given Ray’s comment below. We were discussing how there isn’t a lack of ideas (inspiration) but in seeing those ideas to fruition.
If I recall correctly, there is a short tale in “Art and Fear” about the author’s daughter asking him what he did for a living. He told her that he taught people how to draw. To which her response was “People forget how to draw?”. It isn’t that we forget, it is we that find ways or excuses to stop trying.
Having said that, I agree with all your suggestions to overcome the excuses and in fact I was going to recommend to people to shoot with their macro lens if all else fails. You give good advice–thanks!
Inspiration:
a : a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation b : the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions c : the act of influencing or suggesting opinions
None of the above has ever been fleeting for me, the execution of said influences or the interest in completing such has. I would say inspiration only counts if you do something with it. I think a lot of folks tend to discard inspiration/ideas because the execution of it is a little more work than they want to put into it, if they were honest with themselves.
That and I really dislike the word inspiration, it is a little pretentious in most cases and most ‘inspired’ work today isn’t more than imitation. The word ideas or notions is probably more of what I have than inspiration.
Given the definition above I would expect sunbeams and trumpets every-time I had a notion.The result would be blinding and deafening so nothing would get done.
You didn’t need inspiration to make stuff when you were a kid, so tap that energy and you will make something worth the effort. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
Now that I think about it ideas or notions may not be what I have either, I may have to coin a whole new word for them.
A new word sounds like another good conversation is just around the corner!
Reading what you have all written moves me to respond. One of the things about creating images professionally is that they must be made when they are ‘booked in’ to be made. You can not always arrange to be in the right mood, or state of health, or physical well being to create what is promised to the client. However, it is also true that once you have to do it, and you start the job, you occasionally come up with good ideas and some quite ‘inspired’ images. But mostly you come but with OK stuff. Perfectly saleable and deliverable, but not going to set the world on fire. I find that if you kind of ‘feed your eyes’ before the session (or, the shoot) by looking at work you like or enjoy, you will actually create better images than if you hadn’t. I don’t know if it’s because you have put yourself mentally into the space you needed to be in, beforehand. Or if you really somehow ‘inspired’ , or ‘moved’ yourself. (Ray may be right and we need a new word, but ‘moved’ might be a good working alternative till you two figure one out.) And of course you didn’t ‘move’ yourself,. The work of the other photographers, painters, graphic artists,( or whomever,) that you viewed is what did the trick. I think you’re going to be affected by what you look at, no matter what that is. By looking at work of the variety you would like to create, you affect your vision positively. And i don’t think it makes your work derivative.
Mary
You just brought up the whole second part of my and Sabrina’s conversation. The difference between what I call commercial creativity and pure art creativity. I agree with you in a ‘create for hire’ situation where there are expectations. However as a child with a new box of crayons you didn’t need to look at others work for inspiration or something to draw. You based ideas on experiences or imagination. Drawing on this the development of a unique style is possible. Basing vision on what is unique to a person allows for a new way of expression. Looking at others work becomes part of a persons experience, basing your work on it without adding something unique from yourself makes it imitation.
And for the record I hate trying to write what I am thinking, spellcheck messes up the train of thought
[...] what we create with our photographic tools. Go for it David. And, Sabrina Henry in her post on Jill’s Garden, along with some input from Ray Ketcham, talked a bit about the word inspiration and what it means [...]
Just have to add that sometimes you just have to follow your gut, put the camera to you eye, press the shutter and move on. Then, put the image away and come back to it later on. You’ll always be surprised when your ‘left-brain’ has forgotten you captured it in the first place.
[...] June there was a comment left by Ray Ketchum on a posting by Sabrina Henry that really got me to thinking. Ray suggests we don’t lack for inspirations [...]