Creativity and Passion

In the recent edition of Communication Arts magazine there were two pieces that caught my eye - one in the magazine and the other in their on-line version.
In the magazine, Wendy Richmond writes an article called "Design Culture". In this month's edition she talks about "The Creative Loop" and how observing, reflecting and articulating are three key components of the creative process. As I've mentioned in previous posts, "writers block" can come at any time and really stuffles one's creativity. How to overcome that block is one of the toughest things to do. As Wendy says, "It's not the lack of inspiration" that holds us back, but that the "initial spark of an idea is so delicate that it is often prematurely stifled". I agree - we put too much pressure on ourselves to create. Just let it happen - observe, reflect and articulate.

In the on-line version of Communcations Arts Pum Lefebure, of Design Army, talks about Talent, Passion and Creativity. It's an interesting interview and gives some great insight into the thinking of a very talented person.

On my creative front, I've just spent the past week doing what I feel very passionate about - yet rarely get to do -- Ski.
Went to Vail for the first time. What a wonderful, and huge, mountain. Was there for a week and still didn't ski all of the trails - although we tried.
I took my Canon G-9 with me. A wonderful camera with all the bells and whistles - and small enough to carry around on the slopes. The best part was that I could turn my passion for skiing into something creative.

Here's some of the photos.

Creativity: Part II

After a long, and very fun, weekend of shooting Part II of the creative series I have ended up somewhat frustrated. I had grand plans to add two videos from the photos taken of Lindsey, but was unable to make them - yes it is another round of the PC vs Mac conversation. I've come to the conclusion that if you want to have an ounce of creativity do not use a PC. They are great for typing out documents and even using Photoshop, but tring to put together a video is nearly impossible.
So my creativity has been somewhat stiffled.

But it is all still in my head - the images have been processed, arranged and are ready to go. I have added two images from the shoot below. Also all the images are in a web gallery so you can see the entire shoot.

I am not giving up on this - Creativity must, and will, prevail.

So stay tuned for the videos - it will be done!

Creativity: Part I

Do a search for the word "creativity" through either Google or Yahoo and you will get 69,800,000 hits. Quite amazing concidering that we all know what to be creative means - or do we?

So what is Creativity? Is it the act of turning ideas into reality? Or is it the simple act of just being imaginative? In some ways I think that being creative is what we all are striving to be. If it's through art, invention, business or love we all want to have a unique perspective and to be able to share that with others.
Personally, I like to think of creativity as having a passion and commitment to follow through on an idea - and using that to turn ideas into a reality.

How many of us have been trying to sleep, mind racing with thoughts, and a great idea comes into our heads? It happens to me all the time. How often do I write them down? Hardly ever. In my head I have written numerous, and I might add brilliant, movie scripts, great ideas for posts to this blog and unique ways to reach art directors. I always say "Oh, I'll remember that..." The next morning I rarely do.

So this weekend I am gong to take photos inspired from a past photo shoot I did of a white chair - see images below. I thought about it, came up with an idea, wrote it down and now I am going to make it a reality.

So tune in to see what I come up with - I will probably, hopefully, surprise myself.

Convenient Truths

I was recently reminded of a quote by WC Fields: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it." Two things came to mind when I heard this - the Environment and Photography. Too many times people quit before they've really explored possible outcomes or tried to be successful at something. They are, what I would like to call, believers in the Convenient Truth.
They play it safe, never taking chances - afraid of being the damn fool.
There are times when being "the fool" means that you are the one that will succeed.

Pushing yourself to find new ways of shooting or using PhotoShop or actually believing that we are effecting our planet - and can change our habits in order to survive. These are the ones who will survive.

One of the great things about photography is that we can combine art with what's going on in the world. I recently went through some images in my stock archive on the environmental and noticed that many are about the relationship with our surroundings - how we effect it and play in it. Whether it is how we use and treat our air and water, what we leave behind when hiking and camping or how we travel - we have both a possitive and negative effect on the environment. Once we start truely believing this "Inconvenient Truth" we will begin to convert all the "damn fools" who want to take the Convenient path.

Here are some images from my archive

Mystery

The sense of mystery in photographs has always intrigued me. What's really going on? Why am I so captivated by it?
I took this photograph when I was in NYC last year. Honestly, I never thought anyone would really get it. I'm facinated about peoples reactions to it.
Some think it is a horrible photo; one that evokes fear - something out of a Hitchcock movie. Other's see mystery. Is someone looking through other people's windows? Or are they paranoid about others looking at them?
For other "mystery" photos visit a web gallery I've created.

The Art Directors

I love taking photos of people! But when I was asked to take the photos of two local art directors I was kind of nervous and excited at the same time. Nervous because I could only use 1/10 of the studio space available to me and excited because I knew I could experiment. We ended up shooting against the garage door then added a black and then white background for contrast. It's nice working with people who are willing to experiment a little

Here are some of the photos I took of Neal Ashby and Mathew Curry. They were nominated for a Grammy in the album design category. The images were shot for Apple's web site.

To see more images from this shoot go to my web site

Barber Shop

These are two images from a recent shoot for BlueCross BlueSheild at a small barber shop in Washington, DC. The first is an personal portrait taken of Fredrick just before we started shooting. He had a great look and I wanted to take a few minutes to take his portrait.
The second photo is the one used for the advertisement. It was a fairly simple shoot - mainly used the available light from outside and the existing tungsten lights in the shop. Two lights were use. One on the left, behind the subjects and bounced off the ceiling. The second is a fill light directed towards the subject.

Motorcycle Photography

Had a great time working with Doulas Sonders, a Washington DC based advertising photographer, on a test shoot this past Saturday. The shoot was personal work of two motorcyclist shot in an empty parking lot in Fairfax VA.