you will what you imagine
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.
George Bernard Shaw
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Archive for the 'Creativity' Category
Fleeting Instant - inspiration soundtrack
Fleeting Instant by Delerium - my pre-wedding inspirational soundtrack
I wake up, put on my face
Identify with the human race
i fall asleep take off my face
somehow the light can’t keep up the pace
don’t be so hard on yourself
you’ve got so much to pull off the shelf
pack it away
then pack it in
life is too short
the airs getting thin
the dying moon compels the arrogant seas
the deathless ‘me of me’ caught up in the tease
you still inspire me though you hurt and deceive
and if you hear me now awake in your sleep
Alleluia
Alleluia
don’t be so hard on yourself
you’ve got so much to pull off the shelf
pack it away
then pack it in
the airs getting thin
the dying moon compels the arrogant seas
the deathless moon caught up in the tease
you still inspire though you hurt and deceive
and if you hear me now awake in your sleep
Alleluia
i go to sleep take off my face
eyes open to the darkness
identify
the dying the moon compels the arrogant seas
a fleeting instant i was led to believe
and what you give so shall you receive
and if you hear me now
AWAKE!
I’m listening to this song on my MP3 player as I get my creative juices started up for the wedding I’m about to shoot. You can buy the MP3 from amazon here. Or the whole album with this link…
I think this song is a soothing reminder of how I need to put behind me my human frailties and move into the moment to enjoy it, be inspired by it, and capture it!
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Studio 360: Stew on the creative life
I first heard about the musical Passing Strange on Studio 360 and I can’t wait to take Liesl to see in in NY. Liesl really loves the stage and was raised on musicals. You can get an MP3 download of the interview on the Studio 360 page.
Studio 360 has been a favorite hour on my iPod for at least 3 years that helps keep my creative side informed in a thoughtful and entertaining way - thanks Kurt!
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Myth of Talent Revisited - The Radiant Vista - by Craig Tanner
Episode 22 - Myth of Talent Revisited - The Radiant Vista
The Myth of Talent page at CraigTannerCreative.com
Elements for creative success:
- Massive amount of motivation/do what you love
- 10 Year Rule of Practice
- Support: yes you can do this, be around people are positive (surrounding yourself with people that believe you can achieve the highest vision you have for your photography)
- Get Serious about practice: make it conscious when you practice!
- There is an area of mystery in an expert - where is the motivation coming from? how do they continue to shatter their own limits?
- Belief itself allows you to go beyond your own limits
And this is where the podcast get’s interesting! So keep listening beyond 14 minutes….
- It’s a false assertion that our beliefs are coming from an external fact or source; so many are based on our own opinions or interpretation of that event
- so many of our beliefs are not individual thoughts, they are formed from a belief system: the belief system is an energy form that is incredibly powerful
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How to Unlock Your Creative Motivation
How to Unlock Your Creative Motivation - FreelanceSwitch - The Freelance Blog
“Recognize the stages of the process that you’re not strong in and plan around them accordingly. You might be able to avoid that stage altogether.
Coming into the busy season for my industry, I’m reminded again of the lessons I learned last year from Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning. I need to re start my focused mind training to get my trigger back. I’m also taking my audiobook copy of “Getting Things Done” by David Allen on the plane with me and putting time into organizing my GTD methodoly in Omni Focus.
Creativity can’t flourish in a crowded mind.
That’s how the GTD methodology helps my creativity flourish, the key principle is that it clears your mind. The key principle of “The Art of Learning” is to focus your mind - so between the two - I become the Yin-Yang of creativity.
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Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition): Books: Michael Michalko
A fun read for inciting creativity before you go out for a shoot. How often do you consider your ability to develop creative ideas, before your lens selection, camera model, or location selection? This book will help get your priorities straight and develop your idea maker!
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Mind like water: Practice the art of Meditation
Mind like water is a visual metaphor for a state of being. A nugget I hope you gain from watching this video is quoted “choice is a function of awareness, awareness comes as a function of meditation.”
So if no-one has ever taught you the goal of meditation let me help you “observe things from a place of non-reaction, which does not mean detachment, but means not attached to an outcome.” And this is my personal favorite photographic mode, allowing my own choices to be fully aware and scooping creative power from the natural surroundings….I hope you begin a practice of meditation into your life to help you create with a watchful eye and this article blesses you with the inertia to start that practice.
YouTube - Michael Beckwith - The power of Meditation
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- Creativity , Inspiration , Mind Like Water , Philosophy , The Zone , Video , Workshop , how to , learning
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JoeyL Tutorial Review - Behind the Scenes
JoeyL Tutorial Review - Behind the Scenes | An American Peyote Scribble
Well, if you haven’t been ‘up’ on a recent internet fad, there was a buz about a Photographer calling himself Joey L…..he was interviewed glowingly by Strobist, and self produced a tutorial DVD to teach others how he produces his shoot. Just so you’re informed on the pop culture behind this review. I’m about to review this review in talking about the creative process….
“This is the first Photoshop tutorial I’ve ever bought, and it was purchased for the following reason: I’ve become comfortable with the basics of Photoshop, using the clone tool for basic corrections, levels and saturation control for various tonal adjustments. Basically using those tools to enhance the feeling I wanted to communicate with the images taken using my cameras. I’ve been looking for a learning package to help me take things to the next level and to expand beyond the basics of enhancing an image and start using Photoshop as a tool to create a specific visual impact with my digital images – beyond what can be accomplished with cameras and basic lighting.”
Now that’s a good reason to get yourself a PhotoShop tutorial. Maybe it’s just cause this guy’s a climber, but he’s definitely articulate and intelligent.
” Did the JoeyL DVD contribute in the aim of fulfilling my creative desires? “
That’s a great question, I sometimes find the same desires in my life as I’m hard pressed for creative time when business tasks take up 90% of my day.
” The creative process was a main draw when I finally sent my credit card info for the DVD, knowing full well that $249 was just dropped electronically. In my opinion a description of the creative process is probably the weak point of the tutorials. “
An American Peyote was disappointed by the DVD - and while I feel for Joey, I’m not surprised that the creativity mark was missed. Why?
While Joey the photographer certainly has a style - it’s a level 6 style - one that is recognizable and marketable. The current trend is in love with anything dark, or low key a little bit pictoral. A style is repeatable, and marketable in a DVD, and powerful enough to convince an intelligent person to spend $249, but real creativity is almost too hard to see. Real creativity hides among the interaction between a self and a medium ….like in Tao 33.
Creativity is a process.
A process of pouring out oneself into a medium: for understanding, for expression, for communication, for documentation.
Technique is a gateway to open up the flow of creativity.
“During the lessons Mr. Lawrence talks through his thinking process in adding various layers and how to do different adjustments. Adding layers and blending and the use of manipulating shadows and adding light to images is well explained. This is exactly what I was looking for, since it shows you how to enhance lighting effects in Photoshop which were absent or difficult to produce in reality.”
But to learn creativity, one must learn to be open.
Evidently the reviewer did open up after watching the video again a few times “In this capacity I’m very happy with my decision to drop $249 on the JoeyL DVD tutorial and would do so again.”
One day I’ll have a DVD worth spending $300 on, that will leave it’s customers open, educated and inspired. But creativity is never something that can be bought, only something that can be initiated or opened as I impact you, or you draw from the universe. I wish a creative blessing for my climber friend, and that JoeyL learns to communicate what wells within him. So let this review remind you as you’re tempted to buy the latest DVD, to instead go out and watch the sun set, feel the grass in your toes or hug your daughter. Open up to the flow, instead of spend your cashflow.
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- Creativity , Inspiration , On Art , Photoshop , Reviews , Tutorials , Workshop
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Header #1: Metaphysical explanation
Please join me in a meditation on ancient Hebrew scripture:
Genesis 1
The Beginning
- In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
- Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
- And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
- God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
- God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Well, where to start with all that.
First do you have any potential biases? Have you ever considered the truth contained in Hebrew scriptures? If you can find truth in the oldest spiritual text on the planet - then you might have a chance with a lens too. Clear your mind of any haze of skepticism and find the essence of these scriptures and how they may effect you.
Vs. 1 is an intro - kinda set’s the stage with the most important summary of all. Connect with God and you’ll connect with creativity itself, more on that later.
Vs. 2 - can you actually conceptualize nothingness? Try it - oops - no you can’t do that, because you exist - I kinda see this verse along those lines. A little gotcha joke, that teaches a lesson. Quantum physics is now just learning and informing us that the mind creates the universe……another very tricky catch22, that we all find the answer to when we die.
Vs. 3 - Ok so we’ve tackled some pretty major philosophical hurdles, what’s next? Well we know a few things about light now in the Twenty First century. We admit to knowing less about God so let’s put it together. E=mc2 is the best explanation that we have so far. It’s no such thing as why - but a very nice how. Energy, can become matter if it’s moving fast/slow enough. Pretty cool so Genesis has it right, God created ‘light’ and there was matter all nice and tidy in His one substance. Those ancient people knew a bit of something about reality didn’t they! they just communicate it differently than we do.
Now let’s draw some parallels that are important for our craft. God’s first creation he used for our primary interface with the world. I don’t mean to Kinda tricky how he did that eh? We are created to interact with the light. Ponder the multidimensional wonder of that thought for a while since you’ve now realized that light gives us information, as well as creates the substance we inhabit.
But wait, I have to burst that wonderful thought bubble to break in that we don’t actually interact with the light anymore - we interact with the darkness. Yep, you’re responding to the darkness around you. The darkness tells you where your keyboard is; the darkness tells you where the subject in your viewfinder is; the darkness defines color and shape in your photographic prints. The study of visual perception has been around since the Greeks were able to guess that light came into our eyes, and the first photography book that really opened up my mind to understand the intricacy of how we see was Perception and Imaging by Richard Zakias. It is always my first recommendation for those seeking to study photography and understand building a photograph with visual elements.
So here you begin to understand the levels upon which I developed the concept and the motivation for this site - to Make Light Real
As another perspective on light as a key to metaphsyics, you can watch this clip by Bob Proctor
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Site dedication to Don Cochran: transverse learning
I’d like to dedicate this site to one of my mentors, Don Chocran
I first met Don, on the Moose River in upstate NY. When a guy old enough to be your dad can rip you up in a kayak, it gets instant respect. Buy my friend who introduced him as a great photographer, and so I was curious. A few campfire stories later and we were friends and he was giving me tips to nail some killer kayaking photos the next day. So on various occasions for a few years, I would assist Don with some of his big projects…
Above is a shoot in which I ‘realized’ what the inverse square law could do for me and it helped us get done on time. Below on the floor are a whole spool of fuse burning lights, two large Fresnel spots to push the light up above the proscenium into the corners. On Polaroid we had made it too hot - and we were running out of time for this view, so without a dimmer on the lights it would take me 5-10 min to move them to the exact position. But as a trade off, I switched the angles on the lights to cross their beams and double the distance to the corners. Exposure was good after that, and it was a visceral understanding in the aplication of the inverse square law.
Well this is just a shot for inspiration, but on a shoot inside this building was the first time I gelled the lights for a shoot. It just happened that I taped Roscoe gels to all the florescent lights on the ceiling in a boardroom to color correct them and dim them to match the tungsten spots. From then on I knew what lengths one must be willing to go to in order to get good pictures. Planning and a little bit of technique mixed with some good old fashioned elbow grease helps things progress to the point of good.
So I’d like to dedicate this site to Don, for all that he taught me by just watching him do his job. Thanks.
And point out to those reading, that getting outside your photographic specialty can really teach you some things and inspire you to bring them back into your own practice - so contact an architectural shooter and see if they’re willing to take you along to a shoot.
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