Crea**vity

[lauripie]

Here's what David Bayles & Ted Orland have to say about creativity in their book "Art & Fear - Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking", page 100:

"Crea**vity: Readers may wish to note that nowhere in this book does the dreaded C-word appear.  Why should it?  Do only some people have ideas, confront problems, dream, live in the real world and breathe air?"

I was reminded of this quote while reading the latest, as such, quite informative article by Harvey Stearn on emerging technology's impact on creativity.  I really fail to understand how new technology will ease or help self expression.  It will just shift the technical goal posts.

[stamper]

And what is your point?

[lauripie]

Point being, I can understand that gadget/software manufacturers will sprinkle their offerings with "creativity" for marketing reasons (Adobe Creative Cloud, etc...) but a serious article on the impact of technology on photography should be careful with such fuzzy buzzwords. 

It is obvious that lot's of things that used to be painfully difficult or impossible just 20 years ago are now trivial and can be mastered by a relative beginner in no time at all.  But how on earth does that make us more "creative"? 

[Rob C]

Point being, I can understand that gadget/software manufacturers will sprinkle their offerings with "creativity" for marketing reasons (Adobe Creative Cloud, etc...) but a serious article on the impact of technology on photography should be careful with such fuzzy buzzwords. 

It is obvious that lot's of things that used to be painfully difficult or impossible just 20 years ago are now trivial and can be mastered by a relative beginner in no time at all.  But how on earth does that make us more "creative"?

It doesn't.

I was as creative with film as I have ever managed to be with digital. The difference is this: with film it cost money to screw up; with digital it doesn't anymore, unless you can seriously factor in electricity charges for using your computer.

If there's a psychological difference, then I think it's this: with digital, one tries to remedy a mistake where with film, you'd bin it right away. So in essence, digital has changed the game from getting it right in-camera to wasting time post-mistake in the vain hope of saving something from the mess. You don't really, you just have something to do with which to pass time if nothing better presents itself. Reading would be more rewarding.

Rob

[Telecaster]

I think one impact of current tech is that the people it "selects" to use it are a different group of people than film tech "selected." Not completely different…there is some overlap, as evidenced in this forum. In particular the immediacy gained by using electronic gear—take photo, see it (and maybe share it) right now—allows people who were or might have been put off by the time delays inherent in using film (aside from Polaroid) to get in on the fun.

I have two friends who've responded to this in opposite ways. One played around for a short time with a Canon 5D when it came out, in 2005, but then went back to her 645 film gear. She misses the greater variety of film emulsions, developers & other associated stuff along with the larger community of film enthusiasts that existed prior to electronic sensors. The Photoshop mindset is not her thing. The other never took photos prior to 2005, when he bought a Nikon D-SLR. He's been an avid snapper and post processor ever since.

-Dave-

[Rob C]

I think one impact of current tech is that the people it "selects" to use it are a different group of people than film tech "selected." Not completely different…there is some overlap, as evidenced in this forum. In particular the immediacy gained by using electronic gear—take photo, see it (and maybe share it) right now—allows people who were or might have been put off by the time delays inherent in using film (aside from Polaroid) to get in on the fun.

I have two friends who've responded to this in opposite ways. One played around for a short time with a Canon 5D when it came out, in 2005, but then went back to her 645 film gear. She misses the greater variety of film emulsions, developers & other associated stuff along with the larger community of film enthusiasts that existed prior to electronic sensors. The Photoshop mindset is not her thing. The other never took photos prior to 2005, when he bought a Nikon D-SLR. He's been an avid snapper and post processor ever since.

-Dave-

Dave, I posted this elsewhere on the forum, where it'll likely go unseen into the sunset.

“Photographers are becoming a button….It’s disastrous,” he said. “Digital for me stays exactly like film was before. The quality of the image is different, but this you can go anywhere you want with Photoshop. We do Photoshop only to make pictures not look like digital because it’s cold and awful and technical. But the biggest change is that you’re not intimate anymore with the model. That’s what is going to destroy photography and that’s what’s going to destroy photographers because they’re not going to want to be photographers anymore in 10 years, I’m sure. It has become a democratic process and that’s going nowhere, everybody talks into the picture, that’s awful. That’s the most embarrassing thing.”

From Peter Lindbergh's website. Who can argue with him?

I remember how it was, just the girl and myself, and the clothes. And it was up to us to make the photographs. Look at 'making of' videos and its a bloody factory production line. Who wants that? Who owns the artistic effort? It's like gang rape; an orgy of flies around a fresh young turd.

Rob

[N80]

I think discussions like this can get all tangled up in semantics. I don't think anything other than experience and exposure to life can make someone more creative if we are talking about what happens in someone's brain, left side or right.

However, for me digital photography helped me improve by leaps and bounds over film. This was mostly due to compression of the learning cycle. You learn from your mistakes almost immediately. So for me, technology nurtured mt creativity.

Further, I see no value in the film vs digital discussion. They are both still here. I've got a roll of Ilford Pan F that I will probably process tonight. Technology has to do with the tools. That's all.

[Otto Phocus]

Just writing about my personal experiences, I was a lot less creative back in the film days.  Film cost money and developing cost money and time in the darkroom.  That made me less likely to try wacky stuff. In the film days, I did not have a lot of money.  I guess richer people could more easily afford to blow a roll on trying something just for the hell of it.

When I moved to the dark side and went digital, I could more easily "afford" just trying stuff.  I had some spectacular failures but the only thing it cost me was the time it takes to delete and reformat.

I am much more likely to experiment in digital because processing experimentation can easily be removed and the ultimate cost failure is... well.. practically nothing. Additionally, as other posters have written, the results of many experiments can be evaluated in the field and new experiments attempted.  That was more difficult with film.

[Rob C]

1.  I think discussions like this can get all tangled up in semantics. I don't think anything other than experience and exposure to life can make someone more creative if we are talking about what happens in someone's brain, left side or right.

2.  However, for me digital photography helped me improve by leaps and bounds over film. This was mostly due to compression of the learning cycle. You learn from your mistakes almost immediately. So for me, technology nurtured mt creativity.

3.  Further, I see no value in the film vs digital discussion. They are both still here. I've got a roll of Ilford Pan F that I will probably process tonight. Technology has to do with the tools. That's all.

George,

Excuse the intrusion of numbers above, but it simplifies life for me.

1.  You're right; and added to what you've stated, I'd say that there is a personal, built-in inclination towards this side of life or there is not. And you can't fake it, though you might be tempted because the idea is appealing, as with most "sexy" things in life.

2.  Any creativity I felt that I had was encouraged by magazines, not by personal experimentation. As I've recounted before, I was glo-plugged into life by finding an aunt's cache of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar magazines before I had a camera worthy of the name. After that it was Popular Photography Annual and its sister Color Photography Annual; along with a rash of books built around images from the Globe picture agency, my fate was sealed! As was the fate of the kiosk in Glasgow's Central Station, the only place I could haunt each year to find those American publications! Thank you, USA!

Truth to tell, I wanted to be a fashion photographer from the start, and I can't remember a moment in life when it crossed my mind that I might not be able to do it. In digital work, I discovered that chimping was a huge mistake (at least in Nikonland) because all it did was make me uncertain with all those blinking bits of snap. I came to the conclusion that Matrix was so clever that I could simply shoot on auto ISO and apart from the obvious case of shooting something indoors against a summer's day window, there was nothing to be done but frame and expose.

Hearing of how sessions are conducted today, I'm glad I'm out: I hate to chimp; how much worse must it be having a dozen voices behind one, gazing into a monitor and second-guessing everything the girl and the snapper do! Stuff that for enjoying one's life!

3.  But enjoy your Pan F: far too slow for hand-holding old me! I have a freezer still replete with transparency film, including, yes, Kodachrome which will one day be donated by my great, great, grandkids to some museum on Mars. I even have some 120 Velvia but no longer any camera to fit it...

Though I love film, it having been my life, I have to admit that today, digital is the reason I can still play at photography. I simply wouldn't spend money on it anymore. In the end, once you know you can do something, there's little point in raiding the bank to prove it to yourself over and over again. However, if you can do so for no further outlay than time, go for it, is my feeling on the matter. So that's where I am with it today. And emotionally, it keeps me right on truckin'.

Rob

[N80]

George,

Excuse the intrusion of numbers above, but it simplifies life for me.

By all means. I love clarity and precision. Rarely attain it.

You're right; and added to what you've stated, I'd say that there is a personal, built-in inclination towards this side of life or there is not. And you can't fake it, though you might be tempted because the idea is appealing, as with most "sexy" things in life.

Agreed. I do not have "it" and it pains me.  So I know what you mean. I have to be happy with counterfeit and imitation.

Hearing of how sessions are conducted today, I'm glad I'm out:

It seems most all professions have come to that level. As a physician I can tell you that the days when there was a doctor-patient interaction are over. They aren't in the exam room physically but the presence of the government, the insurance company, the bureaucrats, the lawyers, the administrators and the bean counters is palpable. That is why I continue to contend that I'd rather be an amateur at what I really enjoy. With some immodesty I will say that I am a damn good Italian cook. But I could not imagine cooking for anyone but family and friends and even then, on my schedule and my menu. I'm not as good at photography, but again, if I couldn't do what I wanted when I wanted then I wouldn't do it at all. (Now, if I had talent....and could make money....well, maybe a different story. Who doesn't want to see their work in a magazine? I love magazines by the way.)

Though I love film, it having been my life, I have to admit that today, digital is the reason I can still play at photography. I simply wouldn't spend money on it anymore.
Rob

I still dabble in film because I hate to see cameras that were so precious to me (even though they were nothing great) collecting dust. I like how they felt and operated. I also liked the process of doing my own developing. Kind of like getting out the rake rather than the leaf blower. Every now and again. I don't want to do it everyday, but I'm keeping chemicals around.

[Rob C]

I still dabble in film because I hate to see cameras that were so precious to me (even though they were nothing great) collecting dust. I like how they felt and operated. I also liked the process of doing my own developing. Kind of like getting out the rake rather than the leaf blower. Every now and again. I don't want to do it everyday, but I'm keeping chemicals around.

I own a Nikon F3 that has almost never been used, so to speak, and will never sell it. I regret trading away two Exaktas, an F, an F2 Photomic, a Rollei TLR and two film 'blads. Why? At the time, it made financial and security sense moving on to new, and I wasn't concerned with much emotional attachment to mechanical things. With age, I see things differently, and associate many images with specific cameras, people and periods in my life. I should have just kept them, as they ended up not worth that much anyway. Cars, too: we held on to a Ford XR3i for about five years and then traded it for an Escort XRi. The old XR3i hung around our small town until it must have reached about fifteen years of age, and then it vanished. I used to give it a pat and a 'thank you' each time I'd pass it parked somewhere. It was the vehicle that took us on some of our many trips across France from the Balearics to Scotland. The XRi did that too, but only twice, as after my first heart attack my wife wouldn't agree to those drives again. I can understand, but it wasn't a good feeling having to fly and rent instead. For starters, couldn't bring much back with us!





With the US vanity plate: had versions of them on all our cars here for about thirty-four years. Then, one day, a cop on a scooter stopped me at the lights and told me it was illegal, and to remove it. I had been followed by Guardia Civil, local police, national police, police across France and the UK and nobody gave a toss. One guy, probably feeling sour because he didn't have Harley to cruise around on, had to piss on my fun. The incident wasn't on the old Escort, but on its Fiesta replacement. That it wasn't a false registration number but a website didn't help. In fact, pointing that out may have made matters worse if he hadn't understood by himself, making him feel stupid, on top of being angry to be riding a scooter, albeit a large one. Maybe he was just one of the local anti-US brigade.

Rob

[1erCru]

It certainly feels like a dangerous word. I've never once used the word in my own head to describe the works of my favorite photographers even if it was technically and or timelessly creative.

Courage and honesty are the words that pop up

[Rob C]

Creativity.

It's a concept for discussion, but hardly something anyone would think about consciously when going around making a picture or two. At such times you just do what comes into your head. In fact, I sort of think that were I to be stopped in my tracks, asked if I was being creative, I would get the shock of my life and perhaps find myself paralysed, unable to carry on until I'd had a cup of tea. Something which would probably take a long time to arrange.

;-)

Rob

[Telecaster]

Yep, "creative" is a term best applied to someone else's activity. Or, if to your own, only in retrospect.

-Dave-

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

For some photographers "creativity" won't have any lmeaning until DXO gives it a numerical rating.
"This newest sensor from Sony has increased the overall creativity level by 27.219 percent, achieving the highest recorded per pixel creativity ratio."

 

[Rob C]

For some photographers "creativity" won't have any lmeaning until DXO gives it a numerical rating.
"This newest sensor from Sony has increased the overall creativity level by 27.219 percent, achieving the highest recorded per pixel creativity ratio."

 

That's wonderful news, Eric! I will await the arrival of the best creative camera next year, upon receipt of which I shall sally forth and make a fortune. Just think: I'll be able to afford to stop playing the lottery every week, and with a clear conscience, secure in the knowledge that I will not be jeopardising the kids' and grandkids' futures, which I strive to secure with each ticket.

How lovely to be able to do that with the new camera and sensor instead!

Rob

[GrahamBy]

(Grumpy statistician mode on): It may well increase the mean creativity, but what about the inter-sample and intra-user creativity variance ?

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

The "Creativity Button" on the better new cameras will replace the now passe "Ansel Button" on earlier cameras.   

[Rob C]

The "Creativity Button" on the better new cameras will replace the now passe "Ansel Button" on earlier cameras.   

Shit! Does that mean that your "Rob C" button will become of the past, too?

Oh well, I knew it couldn't last; sic transit gloria...

;-(

Rob C

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Shit! Does that mean that your "Rob C" button will become of the past, too?

Oh well, I knew it couldn't last; sic transit gloria...

;-(

Rob C

No problemo! My "Rob C Button" is made of Platinum and will outlast any camera I own. 

Eric