How much do we project our interior world on the canvas of the world at large?

<p>Leslie, no need to apologize. I don't consider them misunderstandings so much as just part of ongoing dialogue, which so often includes clarifications and a healthy back and forth.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>how much of one's underlying approach can actually be read from one's images?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And I think a separate (though perhaps related) question is how much of one's personality (including one's social and moral leanings) comes out in their work assuming that our approaches don't always reflect that much about our personality traits. Two people may work similarly but have very different belief systems. Likewise two people may have similar belief systems but work differently. To what extent is the belief system being portrayed (consciously and unconsciously) in the work?</p>

<p>Julie, MRI studies show that creativity is a distinctly different form of brain activity than non-creative brain activity. The result, whether it be music, or art, etc. is a product of that brain activity, regardless of how it fits in to anyone's definition of what is "really" creative. Saying that some things are just "doing something well" vs being creative is an artificial distinction. I think what you are talking about is when creative output is really different or unusual compared to what you see in general. I agree that there are those people who's creative output reaches beyond the expected, the "outliers" on the bell curve, so to speak, but that doesn't mean that all the other creative people are not really creative, but just competent. Nobody "escapes the bounds of their internal worlds," but they may have very different "internal worlds" and hence, create very new things compared to the rest of the pack. Some of the people with really different "internal worlds" and hence very new and unusual creative output can be just junk too. A lot of it is in the eye of the beholder, which is both cultural or individual or both. </p>

<p>Steve, your study is circular: it assumes its conclusion (it assumes that such things as were MRI-ed are "creativity").</p>

<p>=================</p>

<p>If input is separated from output, I think maybe Jack can have his way <em>and</em> those who disagree with Jack can also have theirs. Try these two quotes from Walker Evans to see what I mean:</p>

<p>Input: "The photograph is an instinctive reaction to a visual object. ... It's transcendent, you feel it. It's there, the vanished transcendent; an instance of chance, action and fortuity. It's there and you can't unfeel it."</p>

<p>Output: Here Evans is talking about Atget, who's work he called 'lyric documentary.' According to Evans, the issue is "a poetry which is not 'the poetry of the street' or 'the poetry of Paris,' but the projection of Atget's person."</p>

<p>[This crude input/output separation is meant to point to a fine distinction <em>in this thread</em>; it's not meant to be taken as anything more than that.]</p>

<p>The reason I'm so slow to catch up with this thread is wonderfully suitable. I was back to the place in Italy where I lived for the last 7 years; as mentioned earlier only recently I moved back to my native country. The experience of living in a different culture and climate is something that I feel has had a considerable influence on my photos. At least the ones I made there.</p>

<p>The light in the Mediterranean is different from NW Europe, and being used to the light conditions of NW Europe, I think that change alone triggered a lot already. The much warmer light, the deep gold near sun-down, also the blistering harshness of mid-day sun - it simply has made notice light and shadow more. Being key ingredients of any photo, that sure has left its traces.<br>

In addition, there is also what Leslie mentioned, and I think I understand why it resonates for Jack. Living in a different culture helps one being aware of one's own cultural limits, absurdities, strongholds; makes things all more relative as it becomes easier to understand the different point of view. Indeed a bit letting go of one thing, and never fully assuming the other thing. Not saying one has to live in a different country to do so, but I think it helps. I knew it threw me back to reconsider values, habits and my way to see things, and as such it made me more curious about various points of views too. And somehow I think curiosity is a big attribute in photography.<br>

<br>

I know it doesn't quite fit with where the discussion is now, I'm more 4 pages back - but it does (to me) underline how much the outer and inner world are interacting with one another all the time.</p>

<p>Projecting one's interior world on the outside world by means of photography is but one of similar everyday interactions I have, and no doubt others may have, with the outside world. It is the price of the gift of thought acquired by the first sapiens and more recently part of one's personal history, values, sentiments and experience.</p>

<p>The cause and effect between the two is as varied as the characteristics themselves of the various interior worlds and outside worlds, whether speaking of various and different individuals (including photographers) and the multitude of regions and cultures. Like Wouter and others, I have more than marginally benefitted from living with people of a different society, on one occasion overseas for 7 years and then in a neighbouring country for one year, and also with people in in a number of regions of distinct cultural makeup within my own country. The effect of these exterior worlds on my interior world has been beneficial to my curiosity and growth. Equivalent experiences and interactions between interior and exterior worlds can also be sensed and forged during one's absorbtion of literature, art and social study.</p>

<p>The sum of influences means, I think, that our interior worlds are in constant evolution and part of that dynamic is to regularly take the inputs and express them in some manner in the outside world, to test them or to attempt to find some bridges between the two. Those acts, photographic or other, are somewhat akin to the art instructor's experiment of placing one's hand in a small bag of marbles, pebbles, small manmade articles, soft or hard or textured surfaces and, without looking at them, to draw an image that represents what is felt. Applying one's inner world to the exterior in photography is I think a little like that, semiconscious and based on somewhat imprecise application of interior knowledge, experience and sentiments to a creation of something in the outside world. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Julie, I really don’t want to beat this to death, but for one thing the MRI studies were looking at the musician’s brains during the spontaneous creation of improvised music. <em>“It’s a remarkable frame of mind,” he adds, “during which, all of a sudden, the musician is generating music that has never been heard, thought, practiced or played before. What comes out is completely spontaneous.” </em> I would call that being creative. A lot of us here on pnet <em>are</em> being creative when we go out with a camera and get into the frame of mind that allows what many are referring to as “flow” or heightened awareness, or mindfulness, or whatever, and get images that are new, fresh and original for us as individuals. I believe all humans have a creative capacity. These quotes from the two articles I posted above explain this nicely:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The researchers also saw increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which sits in the center of the brain’s frontal lobe. <em>This area has been linked with self-expression and activities that convey individuality, such as telling a story about yourself.</em><br>

Limb notes that this type of brain activity may also be present during other types of improvisational behavior that are integral parts of life for artists and non-artists alike. For example, he notes, people are continually improvising words in conversations and improvising solutions to problems on the spot. “Without this type of creativity, humans wouldn’t have advanced as a species. It’s an integral part of who we are,” Limb says.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>“It’s a remarkable frame of mind,” he adds, “during which, all of a sudden, the musician is generating music that has never been heard, thought, practiced or played before. What comes out is completely spontaneous.” </em><br>

<em> </em></p>

<p>I don't believe that. It's a matter of belief, not scientifically provable fact; whoever said that quote believes it. I don't. That's not science. It is my belief that nobody can be creative "at will." It happens when it happens, not when I want it to happen. Kind of like falling in love. I'm sure the musicians were acting like they were being creative, making sounds they had not heard before, but, to my belief, they were acting like they were falling in love, not falling in love.</p>

<p>If you stick my head in an MRI and say "Be creative!" it's simply not going to happen. I know what being creative is like, but I can't do it on command. That's my belief. It's not yours. But belief is not science, either way.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>“It’s a remarkable frame of mind,” he adds, “during which, all of a sudden, the musician is generating music that has never been heard, thought, practiced or played before. What comes out is completely spontaneous.” </em>I would call that being creative.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Steve, my problem with this is that a child could pick up an instrument, make a series of sounds, in an order that's never been heard, thought, practiced or played before, being spontaneous. I would not call that creative. I'd call it random strumming or horsing around.<br>

<br>

Creativity implies, to me, much more than spontaneity, even if the process includes spontaneity. Depth comes from experiences brought to the creative process, craft, often a degree of learning about one's field (formal or informal). Most jazz musicians have listened to jazz and other types of music. They don't generally spontaneously combust. Going out with a camera and getting into the flow, to me, is not a description of creativity. It's the description of an understanding of one very specific and not universally-experienced aspect of the creative process.<br>

<br>

Not all creative people use the kind of spontaneity involved in jazz. Classical composers tend to work in a much more studied and deliberate way and are every bit as creative. Mozart is one exception who often improvised and then wrote down those improvisations afterward.<br>

<br>

I agree with Julie that these are descriptions people employ about their process. Some genuinely feel that flow (whether that actually describes the extent of what's going on or not). It might be that one is conscious of or perhaps emphasizing the flow while not being conscious of or not emphasizing the non-flow aspects that are also at work.<br>

<br>

A description of a process does not necessarily tell the whole story of the process. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>A lot of us here on pnet <em>are</em> being creative when we go out with a camera and get into the frame of mind that allows what many are referring to as “flow” or heightened awareness, or mindfulness, or whatever, and get images that are new, fresh and original for us as individuals.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Agreed. I think it's also the case a lot of people here and elsewhere describe just this kind of flow and come up with images that are not new, fresh, or original.<br>

<br>

Creativity and originality are not one and the same thing. I believe one can be creative without necessarily being original. Some of my favorite art throughout history is not all that original but very creative. Many B film noir movies were highly unoriginal, often fitting into very formulaic constructions, and yet are masterfully created and a joy to watch. They are art and they are creative, IMO.</p>

 

I guess I'd say that creativity isn't just a matter of process. I think the result goes into the determination of creativity.

<p>It occurs to me that I don't have a good feel for what kinds of contemporary images people here consider to be particularly creative (though over in POTW we hear a lot about those that aren't considered to be creative). I would very much like to see some examples from you of photos in photonet portfolios (or rather, links to those photos) that you [and that's a second-person plural "you"] do consider above the norm for creativity--it'd give me a lot deeper understanding of the discussion here. </p>

<p>Here are three PN photographers I think of as being consistently creative. Mind you, creativity is not more important to me than a lot of other things a photo or photographer may have. As a matter of fact, I think it's a much overused term. I am often taken with and moved by sincerity, authenticity, important documentary, moral and ethical questioning or stand-taking, social commentary, and more.</p>

<p><a href="/photodb/member-photos?user_id=2275381">DREW BAYLESS</a><br>

<a href="/photodb/member-photos?photo_id=18252921">BILLY K.</a><br>

<a href="/photos/mazevedo">MÁRIO AZEVEDO</a></p>

Creativity results from the interplay of two opposite but complimentary forces: homeostasis and the tendency

of things to change and drift into instability. The creative artist seeks to brings into the world something that does not

exist, a new personal synthesis of what he accepts as reality. Of course here I’m talking in the macro sense; on an

individual level it refers to our own personal battles with complacency, of blocked creativity, of becoming bored or annoyed with our own

work. It’s that speck of sand that irritates the oyster but eventually brings about the pearl. There is a certain feeling of dis-satisfaction that, in time, nudges us out of our comfort zone. Actually, I

think we realize to some extent that our comfort zone is not so comfortable after all, at least to that part of our spirit that becomes

chafed within the seemingly immovable walls of the the box we find ourselves in. For the artist, finding himself trapped in the patterns he himself once

brought about inevitably leads to some degree of frustration. An urge arises to go beyond the limits we have come up against. This leads to a countering force and the wind against which we all must sail. I think there is a largely ignored part

of ourselves that subconsciously seeks just what we profess to escape – certainty, predictability, security. Humans, like all animals, generally seek stability and are

usually more comfortable with the defined and the known, whether of our own creation or borrowed from

someone else and adopted as a personal world view. This is the essence of the term homeostasis; when

used in reference to psychological processes it is defined as: “a state of psychological equilibrium obtained when tension

or a drive has been reduced or eliminated."

It is an unconscious process , a very strong force and one that should not be underestimated. It does not invite

questions and it does not enjoy tension, artistic or otherwise. It holds us to our set notion of reality as a pin fixes a butterfly specimen to its display board, a pretty

thing to be admired for sure but something that is static, a representation but not a living one. In terms of the

arts, it is a kind of hardening of the creative arteries that can only be overcome by intent and an act of will.

But even then there is no instant quid pro quo between effort and genesis. There is a period of gestation

here as in every process in our world. From my experience I am certain that if I demand a new vision it will

come but I can’t order it like something from Amazon; it comes at its own time and in its own form. It appears as a kind of natural grace, fervently desired and the result of work but a gift nonetheless. I only

know that if the question is sincere and asked with sufficient fervor, that the force of my demand will spark some new twist in the cosmos that I will understand is an answer to my efforts.

Jesus’ words from the New Testament are applicable here and I believe enunciate a scientific principle as

well as a the standard religious one: Ask and you shall receive; knock and it will be open to you. Of course he didn’t

say how long it would take before the door would swing open..

<p>"Ask and you shall receive ... "</p>

<p>What's the question?</p>

<p>I think many artists show a willingness to stay within certain patterns and don't feel trapped by them at all. There is no one secret to creativity. Bach worked within the fugue format for most of his life . . . a pattern he was perfectly willing to keep exploring and re-exploring. Nothing could be further from the truth than seeing Bach as somehow trapped by this. His pattern and formula liberated him. Look at most great artists you know. The reason you can often recognize their work fairly readily is precisely because they struck on an idea, a method, what have you, and explored it fully, not because they were constantly coming up against their own homeostasis. I don't think of Monet, for example, or Mapplethorpe as constantly demanding new visions of themselves but rather of having a fairly singular creative vision throughout their careers that they wanted to see through and build upon over time. No doubt, other artists were constantly seeking something new. It's also worth considering that the unrelenting desire for a new vision may just mean that something is lacking in the vision you're constantly trying to override or escape.</p>

<p>In my opinion:</p>

<p>The creativity isn't in the execution.</p>

<p>Creativity isn't something that you ask for. It's something you listen for and i<em>t is a question not an answer</em>. Being able to hear a question that you don't understand and that makes no 'sense.' That's where creativity happens. The execution; the figuring out how to get there from here falls out of that. The question will contain its own undoing <em>once you have it</em>.</p>

<p>Bach's question was the glory of God. Mapplethorpe looked at the way the male nude was portrayed and what the male nude was, the forces it embodied and knew his question.</p>

<p>Listening and finding questions that aren't questions to anybody else until the artist <em>finds that question</em> and makes a way into that question; that is creativity. It's not the answers that are creative except insofar as they make apparent the question they are embodying to the world. I think everybody after the artist will come up with answer after answer, but it was the <em>question</em> that is genesis.</p>

<p>Good point Fred about creativity not being exactly the same as originality. </p>

<p>Leslie, I think many of the folks contributing to this very thread have creative and original work in their portfolios. One person who stopped posting a few years ago, Emil Schildt, is to me a prime example of creativity and originality. </p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=526277</p>

<p>Julie, you and I will probably always disagree on certain things. I have a psychology background and I do think using brain scans does tell us something which someday maybe valuable about understanding the brain. I guarantee your brain looks different when you are being creative, but I accept that's a moot point here, and actually not important for anyone except brain scientists, and certainly not artists!</p>

<p>I am known and respected by my peers (I work in a hospital with doctors and nurses and therapists) as a highly creative person in general, and that's not because I do photography (few people know that). I seem to be able to come up with fresh ideas all the time and put them to work. I agree that creativity often starts when there is a question, a problem to be solved. But, often other people don't even know there is a problem so they obviously aren't looking for an answer. For me the problem and answer often come to me simultaneously. At least, that's how it seems to work for me. </p>

<p>When I do photography, I am only trying to satisfy myself, not anyone else, not the art world, etc. I just want to capture those images that when I see them my mind gets excited and literally screams at me: "that's it, get it." If I can get it, and then work on it a bit more to fine tune it, I get a rush of pleasure, a deep satisfaction. I have no goal, ideology, no deep burning question, no demand, just a mind that sees things and says to me "that's it." It could be something out in nature or a person's face, or anything. I'm not concerned about originality either. That's the best way I can describe photography for me.</p>

 

I agree with you, Julie. The question is the itch that must be scratched. The substance of the motivation is not

really my concern. I'm not certain that artists themselves know quite what motivates them. So when I say

question I mean that creative urge or that unfulfilled desire that if pursued diligently enough will manifest an "answer", often in surprising ways, on the physical plane. I think in a certain way we call "reality" into existence either by accepting a patterned

collective agreement or - and this is the case here - by creating a new synthesis. On the individual level, I think, what we find is determined by the

passion with which we pursue our quest. I also agree with you that individual acts of creation spring from

individual questions. Politicians - and I use this term in the most general sense - are almost always more interested in providing answers than in asking real questions. If you have no questions, no urge to look deeper or understand more fully, then you are doomed to be

stuck in the room in which you find yourself and the choices available to you will be limited to things like what color to paint

the walls or whether or not to change the furniture. It's the question that provides the doorway into other rooms with other views

and a whole different set of possibilities.

Steve - You beat me to it by just a hair and so your post intercepted my reply to Julie's comment. I think what I

take from your ideas is the need to be open enough and present enough to respond to the opportunities that

are offered to us whether as a business professional or as an artist. After all, if you think you already have all

the answers. how can you come up with new solutions?

<p>Steve, that I don't think that, as you put it, "just a mind that sees things and says to me "that's I," " is creative doesn't mean that it's not somehow "enough." In itself, what results can be, and in art, often is more satisfying and enjoyable than what the creative artist generates out of his struggle with the amorphous.</p>

<p>Where the river runs is not creative, but it is beautiful. The life and death dance of a cheetah chasing a gazelle is not creative on the part of either, even though it is unique and gorgeous. A bird's nest, each bird's nest is a work of incredible innovation in its parts, in its placement and in its differences, but it is not creative. The performance of great athletes is not creative; I would say it is wonderful and awe inspiring <em>because</em> it conforms.</p>

<p>We seldom seem to be able to separate our concepts of craft and art, or of perfection and refined works compared to what is original and unique. Mozart is thought by some as a refined craftsman because he didn't invent the musical forms he applied, but that can be countered by the knowledge that he did so in a manner that is unique and inspiring to others, in works of creative content. In that sense his works are original and creative. When Picasso comments that copying is something all great artists do and also copies some existing ideas does that make his work less creative? I doubt it. Adams was a superb craftsman who had some creative insights into the action of light and the majesty of nature, but how many of his works can be considered creative? The same is true for the well-known portraitist Yousef Karsh who took a leaf from Adam's works and used light and B&W tonality to give his subjects an intimate nature that some viewers appreciate, but I don't think all his works are creative (A good friend long departed was photographed by the master but without great success). </p>

<p>One can cite many examples where the line between high craftsmanship and creativity is obscure, or at least so much so that opinions are divided on stating which is which. All humans are capable of small creative acts, which are lost among the craft of living. However, even those very small creative acts outdistance Julie's considerable appreciation of the intricacies of a bird's nest construction, which for all its beauty, is simply the accumulation of millions of years of iterative progress on the same project.</p>

<p>When the jet engine was first proposed in 1912 its originality was not appreciated. The collective ability of humans at that time was incapable of seeing its worth and only many years later was the idea applied (The idea was rejected as planes were travelling at slow speeds at which level the engine was patently inefficient). Art is like such imaginative engineering invention. It is often beyond the capability of the viewer to recognize it. What we recognize are the well trodden paths of high craft, like Steve's link to some very well lit, executed and composed portraits and nude studies that make me think of the more run of the mill works of Adams and Karsh.</p>

<p>Creativity in photography ends up being a question of degree. Small and great creativity have the same parents, but differing outcomes. The OP's suggestion of the importance of the interior world of the artist is no doubt part of the process of increasing that degree. It's also the part of the potential that very minor and struggling photographers like myself need to more fully understand and apply. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>I don't think any of those small things are creative: I think they are attempts to conform to an existing need. Creativity is not conformity. In my opinion.</p>

<p>**************</p>

<p>It's worth pointing out, that creativity is amoral.</p>

<p>Monsters and mad men are marvelously, horribly creative. I think this amoral-ness is what makes creativity less interesting or even somewhat repulsive to some artists. Or, if they are creative in the interest of a moral end, it seems to me that their effort is to incorporate it; to in effect <em>un</em>create it by ingesting its strangeness into the existing worldview (as opposed to growing different to include it).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>It's worth pointing out, that creativity is amoral.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And it's kind of worth pointing out just the opposite. Not to say that creativity is necessarily moral. That would be just as untrue for me as saying it's not. But it certainly can be and has been.<br /> <br /> Who was the First Creator, and what did She say? Something along the lines of, "And it was good." Every darn day! ;-)<br /> <br /> There's morality in Bach's glory to God . . . and in Mapplethorpe. Bach was praising and Mapplethorpe was consciously throwing big penises and dildos in people's faces, confronting morality as he did so.<br /> <br /> Jack Fritscher, editor of Drummer magazine who helped launch Mapplethorpe's career:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>The homomasculine power of those pictures excited him so viscerally that he swooned with a gut punch of carnal mysticism. The forbidden photos also outed his sadomasochistic identity in exactly the way that some Catholic boys suddenly discover that the muscular bearded Jesus hanging stripped and crucified over the altar is hot. He laboured throughout his career to inject that sex rush, that religious feeling, that existential frisson, into his holy pictures of leather sex, black men, celebrity women and flowers brilliant as night-blooming sex organs. Later on, he sweated with white guilt trying to make his quest for black beauty keep him from the mortal sin of racism.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>These notions of sin and the forbidden as well as guilt aren't amoral and they're at play from the beginning in Mapplethorpe.</p>

<p>Try as you like to straight-jacket creativity into a singular notion that fits all acts of creation, and you will fail, as is the case in this thread.<br /> <br /> Creativity has all sorts of beginnings and all sorts of motivations.<br /> <br /> Ask all the questions you like, or be open to finding questions at your doorstep and I will call you inquisitive, not creative. Make something (and that can be a matter of building ideas) and I will call you creative. Make (or in some cases find) art and I will call you an artist.</p>

<p>Your opinion is always welcome. Personal attacks are not.</p>

<p>************************</p>

<p>What Mapplethorpe was doing and how people reacted to it are two different things. To my eye, he was exploring what he saw and the power of it, not trying to make any moral statement. That others reacted with moral judgment is another matter.</p>

<p>Having read quite a bit about Mapplethorpe, not to mention just looking at his work, I am pretty sure it's not just a matter of others reacting with moral judgment. He was motivated by his own sense of morality and as well by how others saw him in a moral sense.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I always thought I was good. That's why it was so frustrating when other people didn't agree.</em> —Mapplethorpe</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p><em>Beauty and the devil are the same thing.</em> —Mapplethorpe</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I read these both as motivating and moral statements.<br /> <br /> _________________________________________________________________________</p>

<p>[What personal attack? I made no personal attack. Look again.]</p>

<p>That's better. Thank you.</p>

<p>'Good,' from Mapplethorpe and God doesn't mean morally good. 'Good' has several meanings.</p>

<p>You take "Beauty and the devil are the same thing," to be a moral or an amoral statement?</p>