Have a wonderful Holiday everyone!

Nikon D80 using Lensbaby 2.0, f/4, 1/8sec, further enhancements in Topaz Adjust

Creativity is a tricky, complex subject and since I am, at my most base level a simple person I will avoid any lengthy discussion of the topic in favor of a simpler approach – one that assumes we all know creativity when we see it and are really not all that concerned with how the artist, architect, designer, etc was able to become so imaginative.  Yet it’s the “how” part that confounds most people – they feel they could never be so original.  

But, how is creativity attained?  While there are those whose creativity seems to flow from an endless fount of ideas most creative people struggle continuously and are constantly frustrated by their  results.  Results which, in the eyes of the casual viewer may be spectacular but to the artist may be  substandard  and disappointing. 

For me, creativity is two things:  an iterative process and an educational process.  Educational meaning that I study and try to emulate what others have accomplished, and iterative so that I can find my own way of presentation, my own “voice” in what I create.  Bob Cornelius (http://bobcornelis.wordpress.com/), whose work I greatly admire, says the more he photographs the better he gets. That philosophy can apply to creativity – the more you work at it, the better you become.  It may never be easy, but the challenges become more approachable and manageable  from the knowledge that’s been accumulated.

Thanks for reading!

John

Nikon D80, Tokina 19-35mm f/3.5-4.5, 22mm, f/3.8, 3 photos

No real editorial content today.  Seems the Holiday Season has placed a firm grip on my available time and for the next week or two trying to get a full article in will be difficult.  I do have a subject in mind and if things work out I’ll post it next Sunday, if not, I’ll still get a photo posted.

This photograph is of a 1949 Chevrolet truck I saw while driving through Sedalia, Colorado.  I contacted the owner and he was kind enough to give me permission to take some photos.  This one is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) combination of three images.  Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

John

Nikon D80, Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6 @ 62 mm, f/5, 1/5 sec, ISO 200

Last week my subject was “Why People Photograph ” so I thought I’d rearrange the title and ask “Why Photograph People”, which is a considerably different question.  For me, the answer is simple; for others it may be something they’ve never considered.

Early on in my blog I had a post called “Have we Shot it All?” in which I argued that virtually every subject has been shot, but that there’s an incredible amount of variations in photography simply because of how we see.  Everything’s the same, yet different;  the world continuously changes.  Nevertheless, photography overlaps and the photo I have hanging in my office of Maroon Bells is essentially the same as hundreds of others you might see.  Same mountains, same lake, same trees, same sky.  Only the light and season change – the mountains are a constant.  That’s a necessary oversimplification of course, but it leads in to my current subject: Why photograph people?

The argument could be made (though a weak one, the more I think about it) that in general photographing people presents the same set of problems as scenery: we all have (for the most part) one head, two arms, two eyes, two legs, etc.  But the difference is clear to me – people not only have a personality but we all have a common connection. We belong to the same family.  The familial connection is made when we photograph people, whether it’s only a snapshot of children playing, or a family celebrating a Thanksgiving dinner, or a formal portrait.   We’re usually drawn to a person’s eyes first.  That’s the most revealing feature; they can tell us the life they’ve lived, whether they’re an overall happy or sad person, if life’s been difficult or fortunate.  While I can’t speak for all of course, when I thumb through a group of photos, I invariably linger over human shots more than others

So, why photograph people?  We capture a bit of spirit, of soul, if you will, in each photograph and we can, if only momentarily, feel  it when we look at a person’s photo.  We make a psychological connection and for a moment we know that person’s thought at the moment the photo was created.  Nothing else has this kind of emotional impact, this sudden jolt of recognition that the person we look at is us, and us them. 

The photo above is a photo of my mother’s hands resting on a photo of her taken nearly when she was a young lady. The photo below is of my nephew Harrison, captured at our family’s Thanksgiving dinner last month.

Thanks, as usual, for reading!

John

Nikon D80, Nikkor f/1.4 @ f/1.4, 1/60sec, ISO 100, Denb Flash diffuser