How Can I Get Some?

Creativity

Is It A Gift From GOd?

Do You Have to be Born Creative?

Do You to be Lucky In Life?

Or, Do You Have to Join the 27 Club?

Do You Have To Be Riddled With Angst?

Or, is Creativity a Skill?

If so, It Follows that To Be Creative, You Have to Know How to Be Creative.

If So, Creative Thinking Can be Learned and Enhanced.

CreativityWe Can Learn How to Increase the Odds of Performing Creatively on Any Given Day - Under Any Circumstances.

The Big PictureCreativity, the Kind That Leads to Meaningful Breakthroughs in the Way We See or Perform on Demand, Involves a Three-Part System.

The DomainThe FieldThe Creative

1) The DomainThe Domain is the Totality of the Accumulated Knowledge, History, Culture, Rules, Icons and Current State of the Discipline in Which We Work.

2) The FieldThe Field is the summation of the Institutions and Individuals Who Judge Our Work and Control Our Creative Destiny

Gatekeeper

The Museum (Curator)

The Historian

Judge & Jury

The CriticAnton Ego

Assassin

The CriticAnton Ego

Assassin

The Trade & Popular Press Editor

Publicist

The Art DirectorAlexey Brodovich - Harper’s Bazaar

Boss & Mentor

King Maker

The PatronSam Wagstaff

The PhotographerRobert Maplethorpe

Partners

The ComposerIgor Stravinsky

The ProducerSergei Diaghilev

3) The CreatorThat Would Be You

Or You And Your Co-Conspirator(s)

3) The Creator

Working Alone

3) The Creator

3) The CreatorOr In a Creative Hothouse

Creative HothouseRenaissance Florence

Creative HothouseParis In The 20’s

Creative HothouseNew York - Pretty Much Anytime

What Can You Doto Increase the Odds, on Any Given Day, of Performing at a Higher Level of Creativity?

Build a Foundation 1) Acquire a Knowledge of Your Domain - The Ability to Draw on Its History and Culture Will Serve You Well

Study The Visual Arts and Read Widely, With Intent

Take Workshops and Classes

Join a Camera club, ASMP, PPA

Visit Museums & Galleries

Develop Interests In Other Disciplines to Broaden the Range of Possibilities

Build a Foundation

Appropriate“I am a thief - and I am not ashamed. I steal from the best wherever it happens to be - plato, Picasso, Bertram Ross. I am a thief and I glory in it. I think I know the value of what I steal and I treasure it - not as a possession but as a heritage and a legacy.” Martha Graham

Collect Ideas

Collect Ideas

Use Em’

Make Em’ Your Own

Build Your Skills2) Craftsmanship Inspires Confidence, Creates Options, Facilitates Problem Solving.

Build Your Skills

Practice

By the time Mozart was was 28 his hands were deformed from all the hours he spent practicing.

Expand Your Toolbox

Expand Your Toolbox

Expand Your Toolbox

Expand Your Toolbox

“The function of the majority of your work is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your work that soars. The point is, you learn how to make your work by making your work.

The rest is largely a matter of perseverance.” Bayless & Orland

Grow by Doing

Grow by Doing“Look at what Rodin did. Broken casts and sculptures were on the floor of every studio. For everybody else, they were a way of getting from point “a” to point “b”. But Rodin stopped at point “C” or point “d” and said, this is something else. I can make this into something.”

Grow by Doing

“He had a quality of knowing, by doing. there was a process of discovering in practice.”

Keith Varnedo

Demand Excellence

“Nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I.”Mozart

Commit to the Work“I was 58 years old when I finally felt like a “master choreographer.” the Occasion was my 128th Ballet. For the 1st time in my life I was in control of the components that go into making a dance.” Twyla Tharp

Living a Creative Life Requires an Accumulation of Data.

Creativity Requires Raw Material to Contemplate, Kick Around, Tear Apart, Rearrange, Process and Re-order in Your Sub-Conscious Mind.

The Next Step

Experience Deeply“The average man looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, moves without physical awareness, inhales without smelling and talks without thinking.”

Leonardo da Vinci

The Next Big StepThe magic happens when ideas from different fields collide and then fuse together, creating new ways of thinking, seeing and doing.

Learn to ThinkYou Can Encourage This Cross-Pollination by Learning How to Think Like Da Vinci or DuChamp.

Creative People Tend to Think Visually, They Create Analogies, Employ Empathy or Think With Their Entire Bodies

Inform Your Photographic Vision With Moving Pictures, Sound, Story Telling, Subject Motion, Passage of Time and Good Post-Production Skills.

Illustrate Metaphors and Concepts With Your Images

Take It Up a Notch

Non-Linear ThinkingVisualization - Einstein Riding on His Beam of Light

Tesla Was Said to be Able to Build the Machines in His Minds Eye

Non-Linear ThinkingCreating Analogies -

Non-Linear ThinkingEmploying Empathy - Put Yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes and Use Their Point of View.

Theory In Practice

Muybridge to Marey to DuChamp

Muybridge to Marey to DuChamp

Muybridge to Marey to DuChamp

Wo Woo PsychologyIf Creativity is a Mental Exercise, and Our Goal is to Increase the Odds of Performing at a Higher Level on Any Given Day, Then Psychology Must Fit in Here Somewhere.

Wo Woo PsychologyBecause There Are Many Mental and Emotional Similarities Between Athletes and Artists in Training, We Can Look to Sports Psychology for Insight.

Wo Woo PsychologySports Psychology is Designed to Help Athletes Get Into “The Zone”, That Magical Place of Peak Mental and Physical Performance.

Wo Woo PsychologyArtists and Others Might Call This State of Grace “Flow”, The Place Where Creativity Seems to Flow like water.

Whatever You Call It, It is Not Only the Happy Place of Peak Performance but also of Great Pleasure and Enjoyment.

So, What Do We Do?

find a good mentor (coach) to teach you, to hold you accountable, to encourage you and to critique your work

First

Step TwoDesign Your Practice Sessions to Build Skills - the Exercises Should be Just Beyond Your Current Abilities.

The Idea is to Stretch Without Getting so Frustrated That You Throw in the Towel.

Use Positive Affirmations

What You Say to Yourself is Very Important

Step Three

“I am a Photographer”

Step Three

Step FourPre-Visualize the Shoot - Think About What Can Go Wrong and How You’ll React. This Exercise is a Great Planning Tool and, it Gets The Nerves Out of the Way.

Step FiveImagine Yourself on Location, in Complete Control of the Production, Collaborating With the Entire Crew, Making all the Right Decisions and Knocking Back Great Images.

Step SixReplay the Shoot in Your Head, Not to Beat Yourself Up but to Learn from What Your Mistakes and to be Able to Reproduce What Went Well.

Do This Right Away and Make a Movie of It in Your Head. You’ll be Amazed at How Much Sticks.

Review the Resulting Images Dispassionately. Remember What You Were Thinking at the Time You Snapped the Shutter.

You’re a Performer - Review Your Performance.

Step Seven

Make a PlanCreate a Plan Designed to Get Results and Execute That Plan - Above All, Make Sure That You Enjoy the Journey & the Process

Take a Page from Tony Robbins -Develop Constant, Never Ending Improvement in Your Creative Life

“Action”Get Grounded in the DomainGet Mentally FitGet Physically FitBuild Your SkillsMake Connections in the FieldBuild Your SkillsCreate A Body of WorkMake Connections in the FieldSell Your Work, Get Better Work

“Action”Create a Mantra That You Employ Before Every Shoot

Affirmation of SkillsDeep Breathing RoutinePhysical Routine (Gear Checking)Working Habits (You Are In Charge!)Checklist of Ideas That Reach Beyond What’s Expected

Exercises1 One Shot A Day for ten Days (commit to an Hour a Day)

2 One Lens for an entire Day

3 One Small Environment for an Entire Day - Your Bedroom, Yard

4 100 Images of an inanimate Object

5 Develop Specific Skills - Focus, Panning, Backlight, Gestures

6 Master New Tools - Radio Slaves, Lens, Gorilla Pods, Light Modifiers

7 Expand Your Mind - Shoot to a Soundtrack, a Word or Phrase, a Concept, A Story or Illustrate a Poem

Exercises

8 Shoot to a Color Pallet

9 Shoot with A Post-Production Treatment in Mind

10 Shoot the Same Scene in Different Light, in Different Weather, With Different Tools, With a different Aesthetic

Exercises

11 Portray Motion - Motion Blur, Stop Action, Mixed Ambient and Strobe, Camera Shake, Multiple Exposure etc.

Exercises

12 Shoot what terrifies you - hard midday light, back light, studio strobes, rotweillers

Exercises

Rules of Engagement

Pre-Visualize the Image and Think About All the Camera Controls That Are Required to Achieve The Desired Result

Rules of Engagement

Do Not Chimp. Do Not Delete in Camera - There’s Gold in Mistakes

Instead, Study the Entire Take.

Compare Your Expectations to Your Results.

Deconstruct the Results, Learn from the Garbage (But just Once)

Work SmartLearn to work smart - both behind the camera and in front of the computer

Get NoticedGet Integrated into the Photo Community and Get Your Work Out There.

Good Work, When it is Seen And Recognized, Leads to More Good Work.

Bookstywla Tharp - The Creative Habit

Michael Gelb - How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci

David Bayles & Ted Orland - Art and Fear

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Creativity: Flow & the Psychology of Discovery & Invention

DocumentariesGerhard Richter Painting

Being Elmo

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Jean Michel Basquiat: The Radiant child

PBS Art:21 Art in the 21st Century

The Dancer Revealed

Linkshttp://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/does-artistic-collaboration-ever-work/260319/