Can the creativity of an image be assessed without knowledge of the image’s context?

[Supriyo]

get the ball in the hoop.

 

Thats it! Thats the difference between your and my views. I feel a lot of creativity is involved in getting the ball into the hoop. Particularly when five highly skilled people are competing against you, you have to surprise them with your strategy, by thinking differently than them. Although not quite in line with your notion of creativity, the player creates strategies without knowing whether they will be successful.

<br><br>

When I think of creativity, I think of Alexander's war strategy. You see, the idea of war to solve each other's problems, or designing a game of basketball are not very creative in my view. War is the most unimaginative way of solving problems (what wretched soul proposed the first war), a game of basketball is quite generic, structurally similar to any other sport that involve getting a ball through a hoop, which have been there from ancient times. My notion of creativity lies in the strategy to win. Which enthralls you more, reading about the origin/creation of basketball, or watching the skillful maneuvers of a NBA player?

 

To you, creativity is common; it's in every adaptation of any activity

Adaptation, yes, but a rare adaptation, that nobody else had thought of.

<br><br>

Arguments aside, I do understand you, Julie. At the same time, I feel creativity, a common English word cannot entail different meanings for different people. I believe in the democratization of language, to be communicable to the masses. If many people define a word in a certain way and my definition differs from them, I ought to call my version a special subset of the popular definition. You are free to hold a very high standard for certain things, but then you need to recognize your version as different from the common meaning of creativity, which is IMO inclusive of what David was describing. Not to say I don't find your opinion inspiring or thoughtful. Now that I have understood your POV, I actually find it quite intriguing.

<br><br>

Thats it for now. I can go to bed now.

[Supriyo]

I remember seeing this quote a few days back. Recognizing Julie's comments, I post it here:

 

"Although this openness to new ideas might sound like just waiting around for serendipity to strike, it’s a more deliberate process... Simonton’s research has similarly shown that the best predictor of creative achievement is an openness to experience and cognitive exploration...None of this means that goals don’t have a place, but they’re not a great driver of creativity. Rather than beginning with a specific goal, most creative people “start out with with a hazy intuition or vision,” Kaufman told me. “After a lot of trial and error they get closer and closer to discovering what their idea is and then they become really, really gritty to flesh it out.”

 

Source: http://lifehacker.com/dont-use-goals-to-force-creativity-1723897071

[Julie H]

"Which enthralls you more, reading about the origin/creation of basketball, or watching the skillful maneuvers of a NBA player?" See my previous comments on Weston.

 

...

 

When have I refused to recognize your beliefs? I have repeatedly said that I respect the beliefs of others. I have merely stated my beliefs.

[Norma Desmond]

One of the great things about "belief" is that a belief can be wrong. Nothing about belief is sacrosanct except the fact that one has it. But it doesn't make the object of the belief true. I can believe that climate science is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. That doesn't make it a rational belief and it doesn't make it true.

<br><br>

I'm open to what Supriyo said many posts earlier: there may be no escaping some game. I tend to think of the history of photography as a series of building blocks. Like Supriyo, there don't seem to me to be starts from a blank slate, or photographers who defy every rule of every game that's come before. And, even if I could be convinced that some people really started brand new games, that wouldn't suggest to me that interpreting an already-existing game wasn't as creative.

<br><br>

I view the the history of art and its associated creativity as a progression, with more and less extreme rifts that I don't think are total rifts. There have been surprises! But, looking back, even the surprises mostly make sense within the context of progress . . . creativity and art are like a dialogue through the ages. One may not understand parts of the dialogue as it's being spoken and one may feel that one speaker is not communicating to his predecessor as he is speaking but, usually, and especially in hindsight, one can see there was communication and not a complete breakdown of the chain of evolution, whether in photography, painting, or any other endeavor.

<br><br>

A word about calculus, and a caution that a belief about even calculus can be wrong. One might well believe that calculus students don't question, but I've been in classes where most students of merit or any kind of stature do question what this calculus thing is, what it's used for, how it's used, and how it works. Those are often the questions good students begin with and keep in mind throughout their course of study. That's kind of what learning is. On the other hand, some students (I'll call them less creative students) read a bunch of books and memorize facts and quotations, merely regurgitating them for the professor and the class. I call that book learning, if it's any kind of learning at all, but it's not what goes on with active, engaged, thoughtful students. Decent students ask creative questions.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Norma Desmond

[Julie H]

One of the great things about "belief" is that a belief can be wrong.

...

 

Only if it can be measured. Until you show me a creativity-o-meter, my belief is as good as yours. And I show respect for yours.

[Norma Desmond]

Lastly, we should not limit ourselves to defining creativity as it applies only to the end result. A method, or a way of presenting can also be equally creative, regardless of whether that leads to a new outcome or not.

I agree with you here, Supriyo. What I was trying to say earlier that might have given the impression I didn't think one's process could be creative, is that I don't think just because one thinks one is being creative one is actually being creative. It goes back to that same "beliefs can be wrong" thing.

<br><br>

[i'm perfectly content to think others beliefs are wrong even if I don't have a meter to prove that. And I welcome others thinking my beliefs are wrong and challenging me in that area, even when there's no proof one way or the other.]

<br><br>

More to the point, Supriyo, I was wanting to say that just because one follows a creative process or what they believe is a creative process, is no insurance that the result is a creative one or shows creativity in the author. I suspect we agree on that. As a photographer, I give a lot of priority and importance to what I wind up displaying on the screen or hanging on the wall. That is my creation. If my goal is creativity, which it often is not, I don't care as much about the process as much as I care about what's hanging on my wall and how I feel about it.

[Julie H]

just because one thinks one is being creative one is actually being creative.

 

...

In my opinion, you can't "think you're being creative." That would mean you know what you're doing. Doubt is the active ingredient of creativity. In my opinion.

[Norma Desmond]

Leslie, here are some thoughts about your photo, in hopes of answering some of your questions, in hopes of tying ideas about creativity to actual photography, and in hopes of conveying my own take on creativity. While creativity may involve originality to various degrees, they are not one and the same. And I tend to think about creative photos in terms other than just originality.

<br><br>

On the zygomatic arch photo, no, I don’t consider it creative though I think it’s a fine photo. Here’s the deal. I think your approach was a potentially creative one but you would have had to push that a little further for me to think of the photo as creative. The creative approach part of your process comes in getting something to look like something else, in not being stuck by “what it is” and able to see it as something different from “what it is.” In your case, you're photographically transforming the bone into the arch. This can certainly be a creative way of photographing.

<br><br>

But then I consider whether the photo itself strikes my imagination and I have to say I’m left wanting. That’s because, if it were, in fact (which I now know it’s not) a picture of a sandstone arch, it would feel somewhat documentary in nature, a bit of a dull perspective and a somewhat ordinary warmly-lit sunset or sunrise display of light. So that part of it just strikes me as pretty. While you acted creatively in transposing a thing you found into looking like something else, there is less creativity in having shot the something else aspect of it in a fairly typical manner for the something else (shooting what you’ve transformed into a sandstone arch in a way not unexpected or different for sandstone arches). Compare to David’s photo, where his perspective is somewhat alarming, and his high contrast look seems to support and further that sense of alarm (or at least sense of disorientation). His has an energy that moves my imagination. I feel the energy. With yours, it’s more about looking and being pleased. Yes, with yours, I’m surprised to find out what it actually is . . . but that’s a more intellectual side of me. It’s kind of a revelation that doesn’t have much lasting power. As I continue to LOOK at the photo that initial revelation of what it is wears thin and I'm left looking at something that seems somewhat typical . . . for the long haul. Now that you've either told me or I've figured it out, I know something about what your photo really is of, but I’m still not all that moved visually. My continued looking at it doesn’t keep my imagination engaged whereas David’s keeps playing with me and visually stimulating my imagination. David’s gives me a sense of his own personal wonder and investment. With yours, I would ask what, more than the coolness or magic of the transformation, moves you about the object (regardless of what it appears to be and perhaps in conjunction with the space it’s occupying) you’re seeing?

<br><br>

[There may well be times where the simple photographic transformation of an object into seeming like it’s something else will be enough. I don’t like making what could sound like a general rule. And that’s the tricky part about art and creativity. They are very hard to pin down and it’s not always possible to be logically consistent about these things and to specify exactly what is or is not working. I just do the best I can and critique each photo separately but don’t mean to suggest that these precise thoughts would translate to every photo that is of one thing made to look like another.]

<br><br>

In short, I think those ideas of personal wonder and investment are significant to creativity, whatever the degree of originality.

[Leslie Reid]

A lot to catch up with here; I'll work backwards in a series of posts...

<br> <br>

First, thanks, Fred — I think those are interesting and important comments on the initial photo, and I think they beautifully illustrate the difference between the intrinsic and perceived creativity levels for the photo. From the intrinsic side, I’m completely comfortable with my assessment that it’s creative because I know what went into making it. From the perceived side, I’m completely comfortable with your not finding it creative, and your detailed explanation is giving me important information about how creativity is perceived and evaluated by the viewer. I took the approach I did (emulating a stereotypical photo of a sandstone arch) because I intended it to be a “this isn’t that” photo, not a nature photo—I was expecting viewers to start off thinking that it was a landscape, then be startled when they suddenly realized that it wasn’t a landscape at all; I was attempting to provoke the same kind of sensation that people get when they hear the punchline to a joke. For the photonet audience, the photo was a failure, because the clues I left (the title, the cranial sutures, and designation as a still life) weren’t strong enough for the “punchline” to be understood. But when I showed it to a wildlife biologist I work with, it succeeded exactly as intended. And therein lies an important point about perceived creativity: different viewers bring different contexts of understanding with them, so opinions are likely to differ strongly among viewers.

<br> <br>

 

I also suspect that perceived creativity may have a broader range of definitions than intrinsic creativity—in my experience, a person who is applying their creative abilities knows it by what it feels like. The result of those applications of creativity, however, may or may not be deemed creative by viewers. In some cases, today’s viewers don’t perceive the context for the creativity at the time of the past composition (Stravinsky’s characterization of Vivaldi: he wrote the same concerto 500 times), or today’s viewers with 20-20 hindsight can perceive the creativity that contemporary viewers didn’t have an appropriate context to recognize (Van Gogh’s failure to achieve recognition during his lifetime). Perceived creativity may change through time; intrinsic creativity is constant through time, but is understood only by the artist. And this also fits well with the standard definition of creativity: a creative work is something that is (1) original (note that this is not “the original”—even if the same problem is solved creatively multiple times, if no one is copying anyone else, it’s original to each person) and (2) appropriate. Van Gogh’s contemporaries undoubtedly thought his work was original, but they clearly didn’t think it an appropriate solution to the problem of what a painting should look like.

<br> <br>

I suspect that Fred and I may agree that the zygomatic arch photo is original, but my expectations for what was “appropriate” for the photo I was making were different than his expectations for what was “appropriate” for the photo he was looking at, so we end up with different assessments of creativity, and both are right, given the contexts that each of us were working with. Or at least that's my take on it.

[Norma Desmond]

Leslie, I think if you say "I like this photo" and I say "I don't like this photo," we are both right. Assuming neither of us is lying when we say those words, we are each saying something true.

<br><br>

On other matters, we can each say "it's my opinion" but those matters are still more objective than "I like this."

<br><br>

Example: I see a woman with what I maintain is a happy expression. Pretty much everyone else I run into thinks the woman has a sad expression. I see a guy and think he's got a happy expression and pretty much everyone else says he's got a sad one. While everyone I run into seems to like tomatoes, it amuses me but doesn't really compel me to rethink my dislike of tomatoes. But if I were thinking consistently that people wore sad expressions who everyone else thought were wearing happy ones, I'd be doubting either my expression perception or my understanding of "happy." Appealing to the person wouldn't help. They might say "I'm happy." But I could respond with "Well, you don't look happy to me."

<br><br>

Regarding the happy-looking people, I still might assert, "this is my opinion and you're entitled to yours." Maybe it would show respect, since there's no such thing as a happy-expression-ometer, for everyone to simply accept my "opinion." I'd much prefer people show me respect by correcting me and trying to help me understand what a happy expression is and what a sad one is.

<br><br>

No one has said anything this outrageous, but imagine someone saying "Creativity is when someone loses their mom and cries a lot." I think that person should be made aware that she is likely talking about grief and not creativity. I'm trying to show that there is a degree of objectivity to the concept of creativity that there's not to the concept of "I like."

<br><br>

We have much finer and more reasonable points of disagreement here but, no, I don't think we're both right. For me, saying that defies both logic and language. What's the solution to our both not being right? There's the rub. I have no solution as to how to decide who is right but that doesn't mean both of us are! But I'll stick with the point that my saying or thinking I'm creative doesn't make me so.

<br><br>

Here's one solution. It could conveniently be the case that we're both wrong. Creativity may involve what we don't yet know. If I don't yet know what art is and what all my photographic goals are, I leave room for creativity. Maybe creativity takes place in that as yet unknown space. We don't yet know what chess move we're going to make or whether we're even going to play chess.

[sjmurray]

I'm game for posting an example of mine. I'll use an old one because its one of my favorites and I was very young and first experimenting with the camera, probably around age 18 or 19. My friend Chip was hanging out at our house one day and I noticed both he and my brother Peter (the younger guy in the photo) had similar glasses frames. That was the only impetus for taking the picture. Right away I realized having them stand side by side was rather mundane and uninteresting, so I had Chip face the window and had Peter face me. In the resulting photo I love the silhouette of Chip against the darker background, and then the expression on Peter's face, and the whole gestalt of the image, looking somewhat like a album cover for a music duo. I believe it is creative because I had the idea, then choosing the place for the light and background, and then the arrangement of the two people. Interesting and lucky because I only did one shot! The rest of the roll of film was random stuff around the house.

[Norma Desmond]

Great double portrait, Steve! Not knowing your backstory, I might have thought it was a montage of the same person. It actually still reads that way to me, even knowing it's not!

[Supriyo]

Excellent portrait Steve with dual focal points, and great idea too. The shallow DOF brings the subjects emotionally closer to the viewer.

[Julie H]

Leslie, I agree with a lot of things you wrote in your description. Here's my opinion about some of what you wrote:

...

Creativity isn't in things. It's a process that happens to you and you don't/can't know it's happening when it's happening. By your description of your process, I think there's no question you were being creative but it's not as if you or any artist can be thinking "Oh! I'm being creative!" as you're doing whatever. Creativity is the arrival at or discovery of a new space in your world that you can be in. That new space allows new/more/different, but what it allows is not creativity. Creativity was in the finding of the space. What it allows is for you to be there. It's not any "thing." Once you've found it, you can mine it, but that's after the creativity, the 'making' of that space in your consciousness. Van Gogh wasn't being creative: he was being van Gogh. He was living in the space he found. Ditto for Miles Davis. The things, the paintings or music was not the creativity; the space he was in was.

...

I needed your self-description to know that you were making new space for yourself. Now, what can you do there? Maybe nothing, maybe something. In any case, you have room to work. What did van Gogh do in his?

[Norman 202]

Julie, are you saying creativity is a state of mind?

[Julie H]

No. It's the discovery of a new space. It's a surprise, even a shock. You don't/can't 'know' that it's there before you get there. And whatever is there is not optional the way a state of mind is optional.

...

 

When you're 'getting there' you can't know if it's creativity (you're not there yet; there may be no there there).

[Supriyo]

I'm game for posting an example of mine. I'll use an old one because its one of my favorites and I was very young and first experimenting with the camera, probably around age 18 or 19. My friend Chip was hanging out at our house one day and I noticed both he and my brother Peter (the younger guy in the photo) had similar glasses frames. That was the only impetus for taking the picture. Right away I realized having them stand side by side was rather mundane and uninteresting, so I had Chip face the window and had Peter face me. In the resulting photo I love the silhouette of Chip against the darker background, and then the expression on Peter's face, and the whole gestalt of the image, looking somewhat like a album cover for a music duo. I believe it is creative because I had the idea, then choosing the place for the light and background, and then the arrangement of the two people. Interesting and lucky because I only did one shot! The rest of the roll of film was random stuff around the house.

 

BTW, I should add, (IMO) this image can be deemed creative without the knowledge of the context, although I am referring to the popular definition of creativity, not Julie's definition.

[Supriyo]

...

 

Only if it can be measured. Until you show me a creativity-o-meter, my belief is as good as yours. And I show respect for yours.

 

Lets put it in another way, a belief can be either right or wrong, but the believer doesn't care. Of course beliefs can be refuted or corroborated with evidences and logical arguments.

<br><br>

There are things that can be measured with a meter, for other things there are indirect ways of measuring. No matter how ridiculous it may sound, to measure the degree of creativity in a photo, I can round up a bunch of people who are known in the profession and ask them whether the photo is creative or not. Based on how many people say yes, there's your metric. But of course you will reject that completely because of your inherent belief that creativity is something that cannot be quantified. If you think thats personal attack, I can tell you, questioning one's belief is not disrespect. Ignoring someone's opinion is. I will be happy if my beliefs are challenged and questioned rather than laughed off and ignored. Questioning and challenging each other's beliefs and listening with a open mind is what has advanced the human race. If there is a belief that I don't want to be challenged, the only way of not hurting my feelings is not to state it in an open forum. Just my two cents...

[Leslie Reid]

 

[i seem to consistently upload a post immediately after one of yours, Supriyo, so please forgive me that my comments here don't incorporate the new post; and BTW thanks very very much for the tip on how to get paragraph breaks] <br><br>

Supriyo - I find both of your photos creative, and I’m still smiling over the second—it hit me with the “I never would have thought of that!” sensation—I would have been carefully waiting for the figure to hit the midpoint between letters. The first image I’m intrigued by because it brings up the issue of abstract images—it seems like the creativity there is often centered on the seeing of the potential for a composition in an unlikely place, and in figuring out how to pull it off in a way that makes the potential real (and the ring light is magical here). I keep struggling with the question of whether abstract images are necessarily creative due to their complete dependence on the artist’s imaginative vision to even see their potential…but then, the second image fits that description, too. Both are images I’ve never seen anything like before, and that undoubtedly also feeds into my impression of their creativity. <br><br>

 

Steve - That’s a stunning pair of portraits, and again, I’ve never seen anything like it before. This, too, is a photo I’d instantly pegged as creative, and I figured there was a lot of creativity involved both in coming up with the concept and in figuring out how to pull it off so gracefully under the conditions you were shooting in. <br><br>

it strikes me that in all examples people have provided so far, there’s a similarity in the aspects of the making of the photo that the photographers have self-described as being creative, but it’s hard not to notice (!) that from the viewer’s perspective, the definitions of what’s creative have varied a lot more. Which means we have a definition problem. My impression is that David, Supriyo, Steve, and I share a very similar definition of what creativity is, and my last few days of reading through some papers on creativity (would you believe that there are at least 5 journals on general creativity research?) suggest that the definition we’re using is the one that’s generally accepted (examples: “Creativity is the ability to produce work that is both novel [i.e. original, unexpected] and appropriate”; “A creative idea is one that is both original and appropriate for the situation in which it occurs”). And I agree with Supriyo that a shared understanding of the meaning of words is fundamental to our ability to hear what someone else is trying to say. <br><br>

 

But the differences in personal definitions that have shown up here are important—Julie has a working definition that focuses on the potential for achieving a creative outcome, and Fred uses one that relies on an interaction between himself and the artwork (and I apologize if I’ve butchered either of your concepts--please set me straight if I have). Both of these are very meaningful and powerful ideas, even if they don’t fit under the umbrella that the standard definition provides. My impression (and again, correct me if I’m misstating this) is that both Julie and Fred are going for a distinction between what’s simply run-of-the-mill creativity and what’s art. That distinction would indeed bring the cultural context for a work into the mix…but do we really want to talk about what is and isn’t art?

Edited February 11, 2017 by Leslie Reid

[Norma Desmond]

it strikes me that in all examples people have provided so far, there’s a similarity in the aspects of the making of the photo that the photographers have self-described as being creative,

<br><br>

Leslie, what's the similarity you find in the aspects of making we've described?

[Supriyo]

I agree with you here, Supriyo. What I was trying to say earlier that might have given the impression I didn't think one's process could be creative, is that I don't think just because one thinks one is being creative one is actually being creative. It goes back to that same "beliefs can be wrong" thing.

<br><br>

[i'm perfectly content to think others beliefs are wrong even if I don't have a meter to prove that. And I welcome others thinking my beliefs are wrong and challenging me in that area, even when there's no proof one way or the other.]

<br><br>

More to the point, Supriyo, I was wanting to say that just because one follows a creative process or what they believe is a creative process, is no insurance that the result is a creative one or shows creativity in the author. I suspect we agree on that. As a photographer, I give a lot of priority and importance to what I wind up displaying on the screen or hanging on the wall. That is my creation. If my goal is creativity, which it often is not, I don't care as much about the process as much as I care about what's hanging on my wall and how I feel about it.

 

Fred, when I wrote that comment, I didn't have your post in mind. I was commenting on creativity as it applies to many different disciplines, not only art. In some disciplines (such as David's example of architecture, or war and game), the strategy can be more creative than the end result. Now when I go back and read your post, I can appreciate what you said, because that pertains specially to art.

<br><br>

I agree, just because one thinks he/she is being creative may not necessarily be reflected in the final work. Here I would make the distinction that creativity like many other impressions can be subjective IMO. What is creative to a newbie (like I was to photography once) may not be so to a seasoned artist. However the newbie's feeling is valid I think, because he is simply not exposed to the many possibilities in his area of interest.

<br><br>

Also, I think the bar for creativity could be set depending on the age and mood of the society. What is considered creative in a society with conservative artistic notions may not be the same in a radical or freethinking society.

[Supriyo]

This is an article I came across. A psychologist studied creative individuals from multiple disciplines. Here is a quote from the article:

 

"... the study showed that creativity is informed by a whole host of intellectual, emotional, motivational and moral characteristics. The common traits that people across all creative fields seemed to have in common were an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for complexity and ambiguity; an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray; the ability to extract order from chaos; independence; unconventionality; and a willingness to take risks."

 

The whole article is here: https://qz.com/584850/creative-peoples-brains-really-do-work-differently/

[Julie H]

What is creative to a newbie (like I was to photography once) may not be so to a seasoned artist.

 

 

How fascinating!

<br><br>

You're saying that 'creativity' for the one is a completely different kind of thing than 'creativity' for the other? One word for many kinds of things? It means whatever you want it to mean? Or are you saying that the difference is a matter of degree? There are quantities of creativity? Which is to say that it is so for both, which disagrees with your statement ("not so to a seasoned artist").

[Supriyo]

How fascinating!

<br><br>

You're saying that 'creativity' for the one is a completely different kind of thing than 'creativity' for the other? One word for many kinds of things? It means whatever you want it to mean? Or are you saying that the difference is a matter of degree? There are quantities of creativity? Which is to say that it is so for both, which disagrees with your statement ("not so to a seasoned artist").

 

I am saying, what is considered creative depends on the experience of the individual. Taken to the extreme, to a child, merely drawing a curve on a piece of paper can be creative. That feeling to that person is as valid as to a seasoned artist. It doesn't violate the popular definition of creativity, which involves original never before thought of ideas (with respect to the individual, or groups of individuals, or a society or an age). Creativity IMO inevitably involves a reference point.

<br><br>

You may have a very high standard of creativity where most ideas seem unoriginal to you if it has a shred of existing knowledge. If there are many more people whose minds work like that, your standard of creativity may be the norm. However, as far as I understand, thats not the case.

[Julie H]

Each person decides if it's creativity based on ... what? His own personal reference--pointed creativity-o-meter calibrated from the Bureau of Creativity's Uniform Creativity module?