Permission To Suck

Master of Your Domain

This post is contrary to the point being made but – hey – I’m a photographer not a writer.

I’ve been reading “Ignore Everybody” written by Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid.com fame.  He’s a creative dude with a quirky style who is profound in his discourse but disguises it well in a defiant “fuck you” attitude.  He relentlessly throws great prose, but this one on page 103 is worth repeating often:

“A Picasso always looks like Picasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven symphony always sounds like a Beethoven symphony.  Part of being a master is learning how to sing in nobody else’s voice but your own.”

Admittedly, his point is not dramatically different than “feed your brand” and all that implies, but it has a decisively different target.  Hugh’s aim isn’t directed at the audience or consumer of the creative product or service but rather it marks the creator’s muse.

Derivative solutions are unavoidable but mastery relies on how much of yourself you bring to the solution.  It’s likely that only you know how much you borrowed but the goal is to sing in your own voice.  It’s a fight that is never completely won but as a creative you must be engaged in the battle and avoid your default.

 

Embrace What You Own

Your pallet is filled only with those colors you own.  Trying to paint yellow when you own orange is wrought with frustrating failure.  You may come close but the inauthentic nature of orange trying to be yellow will reveal a derivative poser.

How many cover bands have you heard that sound better than the original?  None.  How many songs covered by artists are better than the original? Plenty.  The difference is ownership. Try to sound like someone else and you’re damned to the shadows; Hope you like shade.

The way I see it we have two path choices that are at once parallel and convergent.  We can hurtle forthrightly and somewhat blindly into the creative fog armed with self indulgent fervor bracing for lightning strikes, or we can follow diligent courses of trial and error, weighing our contentment and loathing against its connection with an audience and ourselves.

Prepare for a long hard slog unless you like standing in hail storms with a long metal pole.

Good's Enemy

During my four long corporate years, the phrase, “perfection is the enemy of good” used to rub me the wrong way for no apparent reason.  I grasp the theory: Keep striving for perfect and you will never deliver good; you’ll be waiting in purgatory for perfect to materialize.  For me, this was never a very satisfying concept.  If you’re willing to settle for good you might as well give up now.

Today it hit me: Perfection is the enemy of beyond expectations.  Previsualize perfection and you’re closing yourself off to spontaneous brilliance, and brilliance is nothing if not spontaneous.

By far my best seems to just happen organically.  So strong is that feeling, that it’s easy to dismiss my involvement in the end result.  It’s as though I’ve practiced for decades to just let things happen at my will.

The Down Side of Admiration

There must be 200 links to photographer websites in my “inspire me” folder.  It’s like porn to me.  A safe bet is because, while at my most lush green, there was only the Black Book - a hard bound source book of photographers – to instruct and inspire me. The now ubiquitous 72 ppi jpeg was nonexistent.  Surely I’m still filling the void of my youth.

As with nearly everything, there are consequences to accessing so much imagery. The biggest could be jealousy.  In each of those 200 links is buried at least one image that caused me to mutter: Damn, I wish I had taken that, or I can’t do that; I suck.  The “I suck” part comes in waves [think low tide] followed by “I guess I’m tolerable” days later [think high tide].

Most of us have heard the worn, yet accurate: “familiarity breeds contempt”.  Allow me to offer an alternate: “ignorance propagates awe”.  While not nearly as catchy, in creative circles at least, it’s probably more precise.  Like the anticipation of a blind date, ignorance allows us to build the originator to bigger than life proportions and in a magically upward spiral, their skill is unattainable.

Today I’m mindful of this phenomenon but I wasn’t early on.  In school, Edward Weston was a Photo God to me.  At the time one might say I was polytheistic.  His scenes from the West Coast - Point Lobos, California to be specific – were are awesome.  Imagine my confusion when I reached the Pacific only to discover the target rich opportunities he had.  He was human and I was in search of a new faith.

Creativity in a Box

Ernie Schenck authored a good book about the creative struggle against limitations: The Houdini Solution.  It's a strong concept to which I whole-heartedly endorse: The heights of your creative force can’t be fully realized until you get push back.  In other words, “Think Inside the Box”.

I wrote an essay “Limit Creativity, Get Innovation” back in ’06 about the same idea.  To quote myself:

“I recollect just enough from algebra 101 to make my neuro-memories retrieve the brain pain of too many variables – x ,y, a, b, c - give me an integer – please – I don't know what Vanna White sees in those vowels.  The vagueness compelled me to walk clinging to the hallway walls attempting to reconcile formless reality as I struggled to see the patterns.  Orientation needs form and the walls offer structure; something to support yet overcome.”

Another way to think of it is to find a canvas.  Your creative assignment gets easier once defined.  For example, write something creative versus write about a thought you had yesterday, or go out and take pictures versus use this cheap disposable camera to find a great image within 50 feet of where you're standing. Give your palette limits, then push back.

That Stuff You Hang on the Wall

I stopped by an art opening last week; beautiful photographs from a colleague’s recent trip.  The artist and I travel in similar circles so the inevitable question was asked: do you ever do fine art like this [referring to the show]?  I honestly didn’t know how to respond to that, you’d think the answer is simple.

My internal tension must have been palpable because he restated the question: “you know, the kind of stuff you hang on the wall.”  OK … well, that just made it worse.  I think everyone who makes money with a camera considers themselves an artist, and the word “fine” simply means your work is appreciated enough to say, “that’s really fine work” – doesn’t it?

Perhaps Fine Art, or the stuff you hang on the wall, needs to be vague enough to provide a personally emotional experience that doesn’t answer too many questions.  In a sense, it’s open ended art that delivers a personal experience that keeps on giving.  If it didn’t continually deliver, you’d take it down after a week.

If that’s true, less than “fine” must mean it delivers a purposeful emotion that answers questions.  It visually delivers emotion in a targeted way.  Is there crossover?  Most definitely – partially because the action of framing and hanging can be transformative: think Campbell Soup. 

Finally my answer was, “it’s all photography to me” but that wasn’t my final answer.  I’m still working on that.

Why isn't Everyone Creative?

Abraham Maslow once said: The key question isn't "What fosters creativity?" But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.

I believe it takes instability to be creative. Those who constantly need to create 100% all the time struggle through existence tormented by the need to make sense out of things that often never will.

Youth find themselves unstable more often since they haven't found quiet paths that take them comfortably where they want to go; where things make sense.  As we get older we want to go there, we've been there before so we take the well worn path; we'll be there at 4pm smiling and prepared to make others smile.

In short, I think fewer people create because they like stability and those who like to create over time find a balance so as not to live a tormented life.  The question as I see it, is how do we maintain the balance of instability and torment, with productivity and comfort. We need to find courage to enter into torment; leaving comfort behind. It's a lifelong fight for balance that gives us fresh work to which we are able to poor pieces of ourselves into the void.

Creative Licenses

Ask anyone in a tough creative field who they idolize and they’ll usually give you ½ dozen off the top of mind.  Conversely, in an entirely opposite dimension, we all recognize those undeserving souls who’ve been elevated to opportunity, prominence or praise.  Just for the record: may I say with some sarcasm, very few deserve it more than me but I’m equally certain I’m on more than one list of someone’s somewhere.

I don’t often get inspired to respond to a post on another blog but this was too good a subject to pass up.  Leslie over at Burns Auto Parts (creative consultant) posted a complaint about Brad Pitt jumping professions, she called: “Creative Poseurs”. The beef: without any apparent formal qualifications, Mr. Pitt was given an opportunity to help design a Hotel in Dubai and took it. 

Exasperating? Yes, more than a little for all those insanely talented architects struggling to gain enough notoriety to design a 4 story office building say nothing of a high budget hotel in a booming international city.  I share the teeth grinding frustration.  Nevertheless I’ve avoided expensive dental bills by recognizing that creativity isn’t the asset of an exclusive club.  Has anyone actually seen the Brad Pitt aided hotel design? And, if so, is it the architectural equivalence of Paris Hilton?

Mostly in my youth, but still on occasion, I’d anguish over a campaign that I could have kicked in the teeth [might as well keep it going] but somehow passed me over.  To make matters worse, all my friends, and a few relatives, tell me how I would have done a much better job than Joe Photo Dude who won the assignment. Thus far, however, nothing good came from whining over the injustice of it.

Qualifications not withstanding, would I turn down a Microsoft Ad Campaign because I knew Bill Gates and others felt I was undeserving? Hell no, I’m takin’ it.  How about that 18 y/o guitar hero on YouTube that was signed to open for Clapton in London? [don’t bother looking it didn’t really happen] Do you really think he’s more deserving than the 1000+ more talented players who’ve put in their Econoline miles? – of course not. 
Our mission as professionals – like it or not - is to embrace opportunity when it comes, admire the luck of others but charge forward head down making our own.

Not Allowed: sidebar

Listen to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton's (D-DC) reaction to banning photography in Washington's Union Station by going here.

Get more scoop on Joel Lawson's blog here.

Photography Not Allowed

If it wasn't evidence of our eroding rights post 9/11 this might actually be funny.  Why is photography so scary?

Go here.

This post came to me courtesy of The Photo Attorney.