MORE THAN JUST A CAMERA
- SHIFTING YOUR PARADIGMS -
Whether you enjoy creating with a pencil, brush, or camera the challenge of keeping your creative level at its peak can be daunting. Over the three plus decades that I have been behind the lens I have had to face this issue daily.
If we are not careful it is easy to fall into a creativity rut where we tend to approach familiar subjects in the same way, use the same lenses, and rarely alter our perspective. It is not immediately apparent when this begins to happen but a sure sign of it is when you notice that all of your images have started to take on the same look and feel.
While achieving a certain creative style or look in your work is important
it is also necessary to let it continue to evolve in order to avoid stagnation.
Buying a new lens or trying the latest image processing app or software can certainly help change your images. I have found, however, that if I make some fundamental changes in the way that I think and perceive at the beginning of the creative processes (pre-camera use), the impact for change is much greater.
One of the most fundamental underpinnings of the creative process has to do with how we have chosen to define not only ourselves and our craft but also the tools we use. These definitions, while vital as a basis for communication, can also greatly inhibit our creative abilities. One of the oldest of these defining concepts pertains to our craft and our tools.
Unlike painting or sculpting, photography is a relatively modern invention originally intended to be another tool for the creative artist. Unfortunately, Charles Baudelaire, an early critic of the media forever changed our perception of photography by stating that it was merely an exact reproduction of the subject or scene and therefore it could never be considered on the level of art. It was because it relied on technology rather than imagination.
To be fair to Baudelaire, in his time “realism” as an art form was in vogue and the success of one’s creation (whether with brush or camera) was measured by how close the results matched the real world. That dogma is still with us today and can be seen in the fact that with billions of pictures created daily, photography has mainly been reduced to its most basic usage – either a snapshot intended as a memento or used for documentation purposes.
At the back end of the creative process, our understanding of our art and the work produced has grown since then. We know, that by the way each of us responds to images, that they are not simply a reproduction or recording of a momentary reality.
Images have their start as a blending of the photographer’s understanding of his world, his life experiences, his emotions, his imagination, and his tools and how they are chosen to be used. This is the same creative process of expression used by a painter or sculptor.
We also know that the visual message in an image is subject to the interpretation of both the photographer and the viewer. An image is more than simply the sum of its parts.
The image of the bald eagle soaring in the morning fog is an example of this. The image is more than a recording of a bald eagle, fog, sunrise, and a bush. When combined with choice of exposure, the effect transcends the sum of the components bringing with it new levels of interpretation that is different for each viewer.
Unfortunately, at the front end of the creative process, our perception of photography has not evolved to the same degree. This can be seen in how we define the tools of our craft. In my workshops, if I ask for a definition of a camera, the answers will generally fall into one of two main categories. The first being that it is a device that records an image and the second is that it is an object that captures light. The ghost of Baudelaire is still with us today. It is noteworthy that the key defining words in both descriptions are “record” and “capture”. By the way we conceive their associated actions, both words can set limits to our creativity.
It becomes necessary then to start fresh, throwing out what we have learned and seek out new meanings. When confronted with the camera definitions I received, I asked myself if it can be perceived in a different way. Can it be more than just a camera?
Ultimately, the answer, while simple in its concept, resulted in a major paradigm shift for me. Rather than a device to capture light or record a scene, I came to realize that I could consider the camera to be nothing more than a blank canvas (specifically the sensor or film) onto which I could “paint” anything that my imagination could conjure up.
This was a key perceptual shift as a different mind frame comes into play with the word “paint” than the one associated with the word “record”. I was not holding a device to trap light I was hanging on to the back end of a blank canvas!
All I needed was something to paint with. Almost immediately on the heels of the first paradigm shift, the second one came about in the form of redefining the concept of “subject”.
Thanks to our desire to define things - a flower being just a flower; we tend not to look any deeper than the definition. That action in itself is a barrier to creativity. Rarely do we abstract a subject down to its essence which, when we do, can significantly influence our imagination and the type of images that we can make. Instead, we simply put the subject in our shot and let it go at that.
Staying with the “paint” theme, while working with a vase of flowers on my dining room table during one very cold Minnesota winter day, my subjects were not roses or tulips. Instead, I redefined them as sources of color, tone, and shape (brush size) that I could use to create compositions based on whatever my imagination could conjure. As soon as I embraced these two new paradigms, whole new pathways of creativity began to open up. Tripod? Who needs one? As the flowers (my new paintbrushes) were already fixed in position all I needed to do was move the camera (canvas) to paint!
These two paradigm shifts lead me on a journey into abstractionism and, later, impressionism photography which has blurred the boundary between photography and art. Over the years, since my epiphany, I have put these paradigms to the test letting my journey into abstractionism run its course using the creative tools I developed and refined.
By example, photographing in the creative environment of the estate gardens of Claude Monet. Being in such a garden, I felt a bit like Monet (well at least like an artist) who has just opened an untried box of pastels. I have come to interpret it not as a garden but as a fascinating space filled with shapes, color, luminosity, and tone that ignites my imagination to create images that are based on the essence of the flowers. I aimed for a result where the work transcends the natural definitions leaving the viewer with the challenge of adopting new levels of perceptions to arrive at their own interpretations.
These paradigm shifts in both definitions and perceptions not only opened new pathways of expression but have created ripple effects that have impacted the way that I approach my landscape and wildlife photography as well. Familiar subjects have taken on new visual interpretations and old perspectives fade into the distances as new possibilities beckon me to come and give them a try. All that coming from a simple change made in our definitions. Wow!
- Mark Lissick