What are your influences?

[john falkenstine]

Slamming each other's pictures is not nice and not mature...But does show, that with a short prhase, Jose Miguel F. started an interesting thread...

[mike dixon]

It's not really "slamming" pictures to point out that supposed examples of original work free from influence are hard to distinguish from thousands--millions!--of other images generally considered completely conventional. In a sense, it highlights that methods of overcomeing "creativity blocks" aren't restricted to changing the work itself--it's enough in some cases to just perceive the same work differently.

 

This isn't simply a slam against Thomas. When I run into a block, much of it is a matter of my perceptions of my own work. Things I liked a couple of months before all look tired and uninteresting, and it's difficult to see things (potential images included) in a way I find appealing. After the block is resolved, those same images may again start looking better. It's important not to confuse that change in perception with an actual change in the work, though.

[._._z]

<i><blockquote>

 

What are your artistic or spiritual influences other than your favorite photographers?

Music? Paintings? Architecture? Philosophy? Nature? Literature? Do photographers

experience "creativity blocks" like in many other mediums? How do they "snap" out of

them? </blockquote> </i><p>

 

Try one question (or set of related questions) at a time.

[beeman458]

Mike wrote<p>

 

<i>There's a distinction you're choosing to ignore: people can say that your images are capable enough examples of what they are while disputing that they are anything original or free from influence.</i><p>

 

Now, now. Nobody is ignoring anything. What I said was that I have no influences in art and that I'm rejecting much that I see around me. If there's someone who's done similar images before me, then God Bless them. There's also been about a bizillion people that have lived on earth before me. :)<p>

 

As many have commented, there are many influences which we have> And these influences, we'll never be able to shake. Among these non-artistic influences are, (no particular order and the list isn't a complete list), religion, culture (which can be broken into many sub-categories), family, general education, personal experiences, security/insecurity, vices of choice, hobbies, friends, location, weather, health, race, politics, economic stature, the drinking bar one might hang out in, ect., ect., ect. Notice none of these common influences have anything to do directly with art, which is what the original question was about. But nobody is saying that they're free of any or all influences.<p>

 

<i>I see images that are competent but strikingly conventional--I see no evidence in your images (or those of many highly skilled, talented, and creative photographers) of bold originality devoid of influence. There's little to distinguish them from the sort of shots commonly seen in popular photography magazines.</i><p>

 

And I won't act surprised that one should see my images in this light. Why? I'm a "strikingly conventional" guy. :) As to originality, there's only so much that can be done with straight photography today, considering the millions of individuals that are running about on a daily basis, capturing images with every sunrise and sunset. I read somewhere that Canon was going to jack their 300D sensor body production up from 70k units a month to 100k units a month. That's a lot of photographers posting images with their new 300D.<p>

 

As many have said, how can one make a sunrise original after millions and millions of photographers have taken billions of sunset or sunrise shots, from thousands and thousands of places around the world? "Now here's a sunset shot with "Eifel's Tower" in the forground." click! "Now here's a shot of the same setting sun, on the same day but this time is has "-----------" (put landmark/location in the blank) for a foreground." :) Yep, you're right, a lot of sameness going on. :)<p>

 

Much of my originality will escape the eye of most observers. Why? Because the originality is in the view and subtleties of the image. Any originality, intentionally, isn't shown as a curmudgeon beating you over the head until your eyes ache and you cry out; "Please!" "Take this image away!". Also, the transition to original thinking imaging didn't begin until just last November, when I frustrated out with what it was I "had" been doing. So any originality would be seen in the images that I've created since November last year. As we speak, I have several different ideas to work with and try to find time to bring to fruition. Are they original ideas? For me they are. Could about a thousand other photographers before me have done the same, identical things? Of course. So for me, it's original thought but for others, it's just more of the unoriginal same.<p>

 

I guess we all could lament life in the same way Thoreau did a hundred and fifty years ago with "Walden". Thoreau has become an icon and people now devout their lives to studying his writings. Do you really think that was what he was about? Where's the originality? And have things really changed much since 1854? :)

 

<a href="http://www.concord.org/~kathy/Walden/WaldenTOC.html">Walden</a><p>

 

We can lament the breaking off too much to chew as in Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and discuss how life is bigger then all of us. Are things much the same in Cuba today? Or that life is what it's all about in the final as in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"..... "Too bad she has to die." "But then again, none of us lives forever." from "Blade Runner". Or we can quit talking about it and learn to enjoy it, cause when it's gone, it's gone.<p>

 

The era we live in today, is an era where pretty much, because there has been so much that has come before it, become a life of repeated repetition. It's gotten to the point where some gal has to flip her breast out on national TV or take images of rotting corpses in a forensic field in order to keep her stock alive. :) Doesn't speak well for humanity or what one might call influential artists.<p>

 

Nope! Nothing that's either inspiring or for that matter, is there anybody in the art world that I'd want to be influenced by.:) So the only road to original thought, for me, is pretty much a rejection of all that's come before and see what happens when one travels life's road in blissfull ignorance creating photographic images. :)<p>

 

[mike dixon]

As a counterpoint, I'd simply like to note that if I were to view a

collection of work by, for example, grant or Jeff Spirer, it wouldn't

be difficult to recognize whose work I was viewing because each

of them has a visual style derived from his perspectives and

goals. I can also recognize the influences of a number of other

photographers in many of their images even though they are not

directly emulating the work of those influences. In short, having

influences does not diminish ones creativity or the "originality" of

ones work.

 

As an aside: Thoreau's writings are a fairly direct re-expression

of thousands-of-years-old Taoist thought, though that doesn't

mean that Thoreau lacked creativity or originality.

[d. light]

Everbody, lives with influences. The only question is whether we are conscious about them or not.

Everbody lives with a personal guide, idea, formed perception of live. The question is only, do we make our choice consciously or do we prefer to flow in stream of influences non selectivly. Whom do we choose to be our guide: our mind, our heart, our vital?

At every moment we decide who is our guide.

In general artist are more conscious about this choice, because they are more emotionally bound to their work than other professions.

 

From a more broader viewpoint I find also that art needs to be spiritual. Every emotion that is conveyed through art is in the context: How do i feel myself in the world? Where do I come from and where do I go? etc, etc. These questions do lead to the spiritual background of the artist. Every artist has to answer this question before himself only.

Just a few thoughts.