Working on a photography project and listening to KRCW Eclectic 24 – what great programming!
I’ve been in the zone for hours as the music just keeps on going…
What do you listen to as you create?
“Halloween Spartans” – Galveston, Texas ©2011 Heidi Straube
“When you cover something you haven’t seen before, you tend to be safe for the first few days. You have to get the safe pictures out of your system. Then you can look cumulatively at what you’ve done. You have to get to the point of boredom and then get past that. And that’s where the creativity starts.”
(Josh Haner)
Conversation with Josh Haner, NY Times Photographer.
Short, wonderful comments about how to take a picture that is different when everyone is shooting in the same place, how to get from “safe” shooting to truly creative work, and who he calls when he’s on the road late at night and why…
Photo by Zack Whitehouse, © 2011
Summer 2010, Burlington, Vermont. I handed my camera over to my then 15-year old nephew Zack and said “Shoot whatever you want.”
I’ve been doing this for years, and love seeing the results. I think he has a natural photographer’s eye, plus it’s fun seeing a familiar place through another photographer’s eyes.
I made a CD for Zack of his images, and it got lost, then found, then I moved, lost, found…you get the picture. It never made it to the mailbox, or into my suitcase when I traveled to Vermont.
So finally, this Christmas I decided it was ridiculous that he hadn’t even seen what he had shot – so I made a new CD. I also had fun making a short slideshow from images that I selected. I wanted to show Zack how grouping photos and putting music to them can provide context, interest, and also demonstrate the strength and theme of his vision.
I also enjoyed giving Zack that affirming experience of seeing images in a more “professional” format, rather than just posted on a photo sharing website.
While making the slideshow, I remembered how much I love sequencing images, telling a visual story, and matching music to the flow. It was much more fun than just loading a bunch of images onto a CD, and gave me more creative ideas for my own work along the way.
So just a little reminder to all that changing up the way you share photos, or work with them, can give you a whole new energy for shooting and sharing, and can spark that creativity again. Working with another person’s images also frees up some of your own self-judgment, and can help you be more playful!
Thanks, Zack, for your fine work and for letting me share this! I hope you continue to expand your creativity –
Here’s the slideshow – a short 2 minutes –
Zack Whitehouse, Photographer – Burlington, VT 2010
Notes:
* What did I use? After fooling with various software on my Mac, I ended up using Lightroom 3, which was the simplest for me.
* Why this image? There are actually two in the slideshow (look for them!). The first is three teens walking along; the second is this image, where the girl in the pink top broke into a little dance. Zack nailed it. Love that –
It’s fun to do collaborative projects; I’m drawn to them more and more.
When it comes to showing and promoting the final piece, however, how do you allocate credit? Some artists may have contributed more time, others more artwork, perhaps another had the original motivating idea.
Tomorrow, Tuesday August 23, at 6:00 PM, Aurora Picture Show, Houston is hosting a “Happy Hour Video Hour with Filmmaker Andrew Lampert,” the subject being “Collaboration as a Means of Control.”
Sounds interesting. See you there?
The Inner Path of Photography 