(See Commandment #1 here)
This is my top 10 list for unleashing creativity. These 10 commandments will be my speaking points for my talk on “Faith & Creativity” in my new class “Unleashing Your Creativity”.
Commandment 2. Do not let the machine think for you.
I love all things digital. I am not anti-tech. I understand that my ability (or anybody’s ability) to create is not based on the machine that you use.
Three percent, that’s it...3% is all the technology that you need to “Do The Work” that you wish to do.
People create and machines warehouse our work. Remember that.
If you say to yourself that you would be better if you only had this or that piece of gear to do the work it is at that moment, at that thought, that you should stop and ask yourself why. Photography is light, music is vibration, writing is thought, sculpting is clay....creative tools are given to us at the most basic, simplest elements of life. God is the creator, Earth provides the tools and evolution guides us on our path.
97% of art comes from the heart, mind and soul, 3% comes from the machines. This may sound like an easy idea to argue about with me. Trust me, many have.
In photography having a bag full of gear is great. I have a bag full of gear, a big bag. Needing that bag-of-stuff to act as a crutch to create the work is not great, not at all.
Photography is the easiest medium to master, but the hardest in which to be noticed. New gear, new software, new stuff does not get you noticed. Again I would argue that only 3% of the photographs that we see are noticeable. No amount of equipment, technology, or Google research can make you a photographer. The only way to become a good photographer is by daily practice with purpose and effort, that and only that will help you to develop into a photographer.
A photograph is everything that happens before the snap of the shutter. I do mean everything; every book that you read, every movie that you watch, every walk that you have taken, every conversation that you have had.
It does not matter how smart our machines-computers-cameras have become. Photography is about the person holding the camera, not the machine. People create, machines warehouse our work.
The camera is not important...but you are.
