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I know that with creativity, usually you have it or you don't.. [or so I remember being told as much in a grade school art class]. I wasn't that good in art classes but I've been taking pictures ever since I was in grade school... Right now, though, I feel like I'm in a rut and want to try something different... am not sure what, though. Suggestions? and what does creativity mean to you?
28 responses total.
Denise, do you do Black and White Photography? If so, there are lots of things which could be challenging for your creative side. Super high contrast shots (which resemble india ink drawings), Solarization, Portraits, super fast shots at night (I have shot at 12,000 ASA - makes a cheap telephoto work well), Oil coloring of B&W shots, antiquing using bromide papers & selenium toning. I haven't done much more than snapshot stuff in color, but double negative prints could be fun. Double exposures - #1=moon at tele, #2=landscape at WA. Unusual angle shots (camera on floor, etc) Have you ever entered photo contests? That brings out a lot of creativity and is a lot of fun. Back to B&W - special filters are fun - I made some great photos of weathered doors and windows using a deep red lens. How about infrared B&W film. I shot a roll of it once and had good results and I saw one booth of mostly infrared B&W prints at the Art Fair. Projecting color slides onto B&W sheet film and then making contact prints gives stunning results, also.
Well, to me, creativity is less of a technical thing and more a point-of-vision thing. If you look at something, and perhaps see something else in it...something you'd like to explain to your best friend as a "cool thing" tyhat isn't otherwise obvious...creativity is the act of getting that point of view across. There's an infinite number of ways to do so. for the most part, in general, the more simple the technique, the more powerful the statement. Without knowing what kinds of things you've been doing all along, I wouldn't know where to begin to suggest you look for something different. Perhaps you should just stand on your head and look at the world upside-down for awhile... that would be different (or _would_ it?) ,-} But seriously, if you see things in large scale (landscapes, buildings, full bodies, flower gardens, etc), try to look deeper into the micro world of insects, flower petals, grain in wood, those little holes in leaves (used for plant respiration), etc. OR, get even _more_ macro... tie your subjects into continental, oceanic, planetary or solar-system/universal themes. In short... shake up your own view of existence and see things you don't see now. Hope that dribble helps.
Hey... I know I haven't checked here in a couple weeks or so... The same evening that I entered this item, my computer crashed--and I lost the HD and everything on it... :-( Just got the computer back yesterday and am still trying to reinstall everything! Anyway, I've done a little bit with B&W though its been awhile./ Once I get my "good" camera back out again [the pntax with all of my variuos lenses], then I'll see about trying newlenses, colors, whatever. Overall, with either of my cameras, I tend to just take pictures--of candids, general nature things [some closeup but usually not], and have done a few sporting events. A couple times, when out on trips, I've come up with various 'themes'--like one trip, I took a lot of pictures of interesting fences--wood fences, rock fences, etc. I guess I'm primarily looking for ways of getting out of my rut!
I'm planning on yet another 10-roll photo shoot throughout 4 states. I'm starting in Charleston WV with the state capitol building as my primary target. I want to shoot it from a mountain with the sunrise, and then some interior shots of the building. I'm planning to use ISO 200 with hopefully good results. BTW, does anyone have any tips on how to shoot into the sun with a cheapie camera? I don't want direct shots into the sun, but just where the sun is aiding the lighting. I'm ending my photo shoot with scenes of Detroit. A lot of things are disappearing, and I want to get a record of thier existance. I was too late for the 7 sisters, but I won't be for old Hudsons. I hope to capture a freighter as it passes Hart Plaza.
#3 - One of my constant theme has been interesting doors, arches, and windows. This subject still intrigues me and has endless possibilities. Especially when taken from unusual angles. I have one of the cascading arches under the Broadway street bridge in A^2 (by the Gandy Dancer) that I am particularly fond of. Others are collages of doors with cactii next to them in Tucson, Old weathered paint peeling doors, etc. #4. I am going to Hungary and will sneak time for a lot of film. I also am going to as many sights as I can accomplish in Utah, Nevada, Southern Calif, Arizona, New Mexico, and possibly West Texas in October. Perhaps we could get a group together for a dinner one night and each of us show our 10 best snapshots (or enlargements, or whatever). If we discussed why we like others' pictures, how they were composed, etc. it may be a learning experience. ??
We should have a pot luck soon, maybe when I get my pics back from my second foray into the Mountain State.
#4: If shooting toward the sun, try to compose your shot so that something
blocks the actual ball of light from directly hitting your lens...a
tree, bush, leaves, bldg, cloud, etc. If you can set exposure
manually, set it with the sun blocked from the camera, even if the
object blocking it is in the shot, then recompose the shot and use
the exposure you just took. If a little light gets directly into
your lens you might get a halo effect which you could use as a
compositional element as well.
If the sun is high enough, or to one side far enough to be out of the
shot, use a cardboard, hat or even an umbrella to shadow your lens
as you take the shot.
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.
I like the idea of getting together sometime to show off our best photos and perhaps a critique session--I'm sure we can learn from each other! Though I'm sure y'all won't necessarily want to wait for my next trip to MI--since I haven't a clue as to when that will be! Though if any of you are ever passing through NC, do let me know! MArc, I bet some of your window/archays/etc photos ARE interesting! Omni, I have a couple interesting photos with the sun... One of which I used a tree--in the wintertime [with no leaves...] to block the sun itself but had the interesting lighting effects... [And I think I might have one of them witha lake in the background. I'll have to go through those photos again sometime!]
Hey, y'all! Greetings from NCarolina... I haven't been online in ages and ages. So what's new in the creativity department?? For me, since I'm always looking for new ideas, I'm taking some photo classes this summer at the Durham Arts Council. One's on "Nature and Photography", another one is "intamacy and photography" [one of these classes is 6 weeks, the other is 8 weeks, meeting one night each week]. Then I also signed up for a one time class in coloring of b&w photography. Hopefully I'll get some new ideas!
been awhile since anythings been entered here...so here goes... Lately, with the expolsion of fall colors, I've been doing some landscape/nature photos. Last week (or so) I happened to be driving eastbound on Plymouth road at about 8+pm and was inspired by the view of a huge, orange, full moon rising just above the horizon. Naturally I didn't have my camera with me, so I rushed home, got the camera and raced to Gallup Park to try and catch that moon with some trees/water in the compositions. I used a tripod (d'uh) with 100ASA Kodak gold, and varied both wide and narrow f stops as well as timing. I also used the full range of camera meter settings (average, center weighted, spot). within about 45 minutes I shot most of a 24 exp roll. A couple of shots came out well enough to tell what i was trying to do, but most look like a sunrise or sunset, with dark backgrounds. I even did a few with forced flash to illuminate trees/leaves in the foreground but to no real avail. anyone have thoughts on how to capture that erie full moon glow, and even some of the details of the craters, etc, while still getting a silouette (at least) of background for composition (I can get decent pics of the moon only, but they're not visually appealing without taking them through a telescope)? (btw - my next roll, not yet developed, is early morning and late evening close-ups of unique flowers, weeds, grasses, leaves, etc. The colors should be great, and close focus with narrow depth of field usually helps me in making appealing compositions).
Hmmm... at really slow shutter speeds, you could try waving something in between the camera and the moon, reducing its light falling on the film. Maybe 5 seconds exposure, a quick rieach in with a black disk?
Yeah, I thought of 'dodging' out the moonlight, but, I was rushing to get my camera and still catching the moonrise before it got too high in the sky (and too small to tell it is the moon). I think if I were to plan the dodging method I might use a pane of glass with an opaque circle (or irregular round shape) painted on it. The other idea I had was to do a double exposure on one frame, one of which with the moon blocked by some device similar to the above.
I took a high-speed photo of a drip of water from my faucet. I think it looks cool because the flash wasn't pointed directly at the waterdrop, but instead at the ceiling to make the lighting more realistic. http://memember.triton.net/eprom/LJ/drip.jpg I'm thinking of doing a long exposure of the stars rotating around polaris, but that means driving a few miles out of town. and i'm not sure if I have the patience to wait 5+ hours. I also want to do some lightning pics, but we haven't had any thunderstorms in the kzoo area yet.
There's something wrong with your URL. I'm getting 'the domain name does not exist.'
opps! it's suppose to be http://members.triton.net/eprom/LJ/drip.jpg
Cool.
My roommate brought home some flowers from Holland, MI. http://members.triton.net/eprom/flowers.jpg I set my external flash on a tripod to the left of the flowers. Then set my camera to macro mode and used the highest shutter speed (1/1000th) and the smallest aperture (f8.0). I also had the room light on which gave me just enough light to autofocus. Then I went into Photoshop to increase the contrast, saturation and added a little gaussian blur to a duplicate layer with the opacity set at around 40%.
I recently found out about cross-processing slide film (E-6) as color negative (C-41). The lab technican at Rite-aid refused to process it. I doubt a single roll of film is going to "ruin your film and ruin our chemicals" as she claimed. So anyways, I went to Walgreens and they processed it. Heres a link to some of the pictures (the bottom 5 pictures). http://www.livejournal.com/users/eprom/7864.html
Awhile back, I saw in a book a portrait photograph of some dude. It was pretty creative since it was cross-processed Fuji Astia film. If I remember correctly, he shot it 2 stops over exposed. So I figured i'd try the same.
Anywho I just got the roll of Astia 100F back from the lab, and it looks like poop. The film's base turns green, so when viewed as a positive, all the pictures have an over-powering magenta cast, that drowns out any of the other colors.
All the pictures I took using natural outdoor lighting (both sunny and overcast) turned out poorly. Only the photos that I took indoors under fluorescent lighting turned out decent.
link: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~j4castee/ivana.jpg
[a picture of my electronics lab partner]
So I think the only way to get cross-processed Astia looking decent is
by using controlled lighting. Which is what the photographer in the book
most likely used.
That makes sense, since fluorescent has a green tint. You could
probably get the same effect outdoors with a filter.
I've spent years and years taking photos but in the past year or so, I've gotten pretty stagnent with my photography. I did get a digital camera about 1 1/2-2 years ago but I'm still not as comfortable with digital as I am with film cameras. Does anyone have any new ideas to get my 'creative juices' flowing again?
Ok, I'm going to put my digital camera to rest for awhile and get back into film photography again. So while I was out today, I brought some batteries and some 400 speed film [I was disappointed that the drug store no longer carries Fuji film, though]. I'll have to take my camera with me again and see what will inspire me...
Good luck! :-)
Thanks, Andy; I'll need it get me back in the mode again and to come up with ideas.
"Fhe singular brilliance of photography is it's capacity for allowing hacks & amateurs to create the accidental, offhand masterpiece. Your grandma has no great unread novels or perfect lost symphonies written by her & still tucked away in a drawer in some upstairs closet - but the odds are she does have a photo or two snapped by Uncle Lou in 1939 with a $2 Brownie that wouldn't be out of place on the walls of MOMA. Hopefully somebody will give me a million-dollar grant to go door-to-door looking for these someday. In the meantime when I get bored I snoop about on ebay, the library of congress, etc, & post the cream of what I find on Mirror World. This is from the owner of http://www.thelastwonderoftheworld.com/MIRRORWORLD.html A stunning site. A bit slow to load, but otherwise just wonderful.
I just got a message that the site is temporarily unavailable. :-(
Yeah, it seems to have gotten overwhelmed by people checking it out. Give it a week or two, and see if you can get on then.
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