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Finding Inspiration
By David Duchemin
As a photographer, I live and breathe in the creative world, but when the creative juices run dry, it gets a little harder to do my job.
The more I understand the process, the easier it becomes.
The ancient Greeks attributed creative inspiration to the muses. Classically, there were nine of them and should you fall into their good graces,
your creative efforts would be rewarded with brilliance. If only.
The creative muse is a bit of a mystery to me. In fact, were the truth be known, I often fear her the same way I feared girls in the seventh-grade.
I worry that just as I get my hopes up, I will discover her giving more attention to someone else, leaving me with nothing to do but wander aimlessly
with sad Charlie Brown music in my head.
I have often gone on assignment without inspiration, and thinking to myself, "What if I've shot my last good image? What if I can't find my muse, and
all I come back with is a hard drive full of failure?"
Of course, it does not happen, and if you spend enough time with your muse, you will come to realize a few things and begin to trust them as a constant.
We fear what we do not understand and the more you understand the process of inspiration, the more comfortable you can be with her seeming inconsistencies.
The first thing to realize is the creative process is not so simple that it can be reduced to a formula - go here, wait for muse, shoot brilliant image.
It is not a reactive process dependant on a magic fairy appearing and beating you with an inspiration-stick. Creativity is something you can actively work at,
and the more closely you know your own process, the more reliably the muse appears. Having said that, I think we all know that some days just do not go the
way we want, and sometimes that's chalked-up to being uninspired, or bored, or lazy. Probably the latter two.
I really believe that the more you understand what inspires you, the more readily you can put yourself in her path. I know what gets my creative juices going.
For me, the low-hanging fruit is great light, interesting people, and exotic places where the homogeny of the west has not replaced the beauty of human
uniqueness with a strip mall, a Starbucks, and the fashion of the day. Some people love shooting that; I do not. So putting myself in a place I connect
and resonate with, getting out early and staying until late in the evening, wandering aimlessly - that inspires me. As Joe McNally would say, "Put yourself in
front of more interesting stuff."
But that's the low-hanging fruit - the easy stuff. What about when you are asked to shoot something that does not inspire you? Ask yourself how you feel, how
you think, about this thing about which you are so uninspired. Find an opinion; find something in there that you ARE passionate about. Maybe it is just a
passion for great light, or tones, or lines - whatever it is, shoot that.
I have a client that does custom upholstery for cars. Seats and cars provide precisely zero inspiration for me, but great lines and textures do. So I do not
shoot them as seats, I shoot them as a playground of line and texture. I forget the label "car seat" and just look for sweeping line and the contrast of
stitch on leather. I play with the light and I shoot images that my client loves because he does not see his work as just a "car seat" either. He sees it as
art and the way I shoot them reflects that.
And then there's the times when your inspiration is just a general malaise preventing you from getting out there and discovering your muse. Sometimes you have
to chase it down, hunt for it. Sometimes we just need to stop making excuses and get out there and start seeing. Make a conscious effort not to see things as
"a bicycle" or "a tree" but to see the shapes, the shadows, the lines, textures, and just play until it all comes together. Creativity is about receptivity
and that doesn't happen until we let go of ourselves for a while. Nothing kills creativity, inspiration, or motivation like self-pity, self-doubt, and
self-preoccupation.
Lack of inspiration is not an excuse for bad photography or no photography; it is a reason to get up in the morning, grab a camera, and go shake the cobwebs
off your mind, your eyes, your spirit. Forget the absence of the muse, head out without her. Wander until your eyes open, then you'll find the muse is already
there, waiting.
The other way of looking at all this, Greek goddesses aside, is by considering the word inspiration, which means "to breathe in." Sometimes, all we need to do
is breathe in some fresh air. Increasing the inputs is a great way to do this. Here are some suggestions for increasing your inputs, climbing out of a creative
rut, and finding inspiration as a photographer:
1. Pick up a book of the works of one of the classic photographers, preferably someone whose style is different than your own, even someone whose
work you do not care for, and take it in. Just let your eye and your mind wander. More inputs means more raw materials for the creative side of
your brain to play with.
2. Look at your favorite images from the last year or last month, whatever, and make a list of the similarities. Do they all share a same basic
framing, basic narrative, or color palette? Where they all shot with the same lens, same lighting, the same basic settings? What you are doing here
is finding a palatable way of asking, "What's the rut I have fallen into" On its own, this is a great exercise. But taking some time to go do the
opposite is even stronger. Go shoot something you would never normally shoot in a style you would not normally shoot in. Get out of your rut.
If you are shooting horizontally, shoot vertically for a day (and ONLY vertically). Creativity functions best within confines - so impose some rules.
If you always shoot with that 85/1.8 then slap on your 24mm and do not take it off, maybe for a week. Always shoot color? Stop. Always shoot in
soft light? Go out at high noon and shoot something garish.
3. In narrative, the heart of story is conflict. Stories do not move forward without conflict, ever. In photography I believe, or I think I do, that
conflict is expressed through contrast. So go create some images that are high contrast conceptually. A tough biker sitting on a tricycle or Big Wheel.
A priest at a casino or strip club. A bridal couple in the slums. A man in a Speedo at a black-tie wedding reception. Or something simpler -
a Starbucks cup littering an idyllic beach, a couple arguing in a romantic spot. Think contrast. Mechanical vs. Organic. Curvy vs. Straight.
Dark vs. Light.
4. Break a rule. Screw the rule of thirds or the golden rectangle. Use slow shutter speed. Stop focusing. Blow out the highlights. Point the camera in
the wrong direction. Do something, anything, to silence that inner rule-monger who is so afraid you'll create an image that you can't even salvage in
Photoshop with the Un-Suck filter.
However you think about it, inspiration does not just come to us most of the time. It is a result of flexing your creative muscles and keeping them toned by
getting out there and practicing your craft in new and creative ways and watching the new inputs and new experiences combine to form the spark of an idea or
the renewal of your vision.
David Duchemin Bio
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