Look at all kinds of art and then turn off your thoughts to turn on creativity
By Louise Mann
4 May 2007
Many novice photographers see an image they like and seek to imitate it. What's wrong with that? Well nothing really; there is learning to be had and an experimentation process while you're trying out either what you've been told to do or what you think you ought to do to achieve that result. I've done that, however I didn't ever get anywhere meaningful with my photography following this path.
In order to develop visual literacy, I choose to look at all kinds of imagery - paintings, drawings, film, photographs, watercolours, etching and other print media, TV, billboards, sculpture, mixed media etc. etc. The list is endless.
Many photographers starting out look at and study primarily photographic imagery. Alot decide from this form of study, the type of photography they want to do. These images stay in their memory and then all that they subsequently see, they take in with that photographic memory bank as a background. To touch on the psychology of visual perception, we see all our surroundings with the sum of the experiences we have collected to date. Its our data. If we see the things we always see, we become desensitised to it. The eyes of babies and children show such wonder all the time because they're busy filling up their memory banks!
One point about photography that differs to other visual arts is that becuase photographs are created using a mechanical or digital piece of equipment, readily available to just about anyone, many people incorrectly assume that should they acquire that equipment, they'll be able to do it too! All too common questions are: how did you do that? or what equipment did you use? I don't often hear painters asked what size brush they used or what colour code was on the paint tin.
Sometimes a novice sees an image and decides 'I want to do that' or 'I've got to try that'. So they go out and do what they 'think' is correct to achieve that result. While it can be argued that this is a learning process, they are seeking to re-create an image with the logic side of their brain. They're thinking too hard! They try to work out how it was done and set their cameras to try to achieve that. Even if they are successful at creating the shot they want, it's impact is affected because its an imitation of something that has already been done and is already in our memory banks. I've seen many posts on photo sharing sites which ask photographers to display their settings because its helpful. Personally I find the opposite. Its just too easy to have those settings and that shot in mind when you find yourself in similar circumstances. Logic rears its head! Its too easy to go straight to what you 'think' you already know is correct rather than to 'feel' the moment and select alternative settings or the alternative view which you feel are right in the moment.
When I view great work on photo sharing sites, I fave the work, make a comment if I can and just enjoy the image. Its so great to soak images in this way! I don't try to emulate or imitate because that would require a logic 'thinking' approach to the task. And while the logic side of the brain is at work, the creative side is supressed. 'We don't 'think' or 'process' with our creative side. We respond emotionally with it. And so, if I'm too busy attempting to imitate someone else's creation, I've just missed all the ones that would have come to me had my creative brain been turned on, and I'd been emotionally responding to my surroundings.
So, don't just look at photography. Look at all visual art forms. Know what you see. Know what you like and why. Know what you don't like and why. Know what works and why, regardless of whether you like it or not. Check out art exhibitions too and take in painting, drawing, sketching, watercolours, guages, acrylics, dot painting....the list is endless. This will help to inspire you to find your own soul and switch on your creative side. Then, when you go out with your camera, empty your logic side, and don't look for images. Just feel your surroundings and let them come to you. For example, you go out with your camera looking for something to photograph. You're concentrating so hard, trying to find something or someone interesting, that you miss the feeling of temperature change when you're walking in intermittent shadows...warm rays of light, cool shadows, warm, cool... and thats the element you might be meant to respond to.
When you shoot with the emotion and passion that comes from the creative side of the brain, tapping into that insight when you first react emotionally or in a sensory way to whats before you, nothing you've ever seen before will matter in the moment. Then what you produce won't feel or look like anything thats gone before, because we all feel in our own unique way.
There is a bottomless well of talent and outstanding work here on JPG. I love alot of it and the great thing is that I can come here and see it all without having to go and figure out how to do it myself. I most likely wouldn't be able to anyway, because I'm me and not the person who shot the image I'm admiring. This leaves me blissfully free to shoot what it is I'm supposed to shoot.
I believe we do shoot the images we're supposed to. Our best images come to us. When we open up our creative minds and our souls to our surroundings completely - they just fall in our lap.
Paul Cezanne once said, 'Art that does not begin with emotion, is not Art'.
Louise Mann
Perth
Western Australia
***if you chose to select this piece for publication, I can provide additional images at your request***
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