Creativity – sometimes it’s obvious
I often find that books I read on subjects other than photography are more helpful to me than books that are directly about it. One I go back to frequently is ‘Impro’ by Keith Johnstone, which is about theatrical improvisation. I have little or no interest in theatrical improvisation itself, but what fascinates me about the content is how easily it can be applied to any aspect of life, including photography.
One of the most interesting sections is on spontaneity and originality. As artists, we all aspire to be original but so much of the time our work is lacking in it. Johnstone’s view is that the more we strive to be original, the more likely we are to fail, and that’s usually because it leads us to constantly censor how we respond. When he teaches students to come up with successful improvisations, he asks them to do or say the very first thing that comes into their heads. When they do this the improvisation works but when they hesitate slightly and substitute something they think is more acceptable or more interesting or more original, it kills the whole thing. We all know how it feels to see someone try too hard – it’s never effective.
The worst possible thing improvisers can do, according to Johnstone, is to make a deliberate effort to be original. This always falls flat anyway, and usually they think they’re being original when in fact their ‘originality’ is the same as everyone else’s – a bit like punks rebelling against authority and the pressure to conform, but all doing it in the same way so that it becomes just a different way of conforming. ‘I gave up asking London audiences to suggest where scenes should take place’, says Johnstone, ‘Some idiot would always shout out either “Leicester Square public lavatories” or “outside Buckingham Palace”. People trying to be original always arrive at the same boring old answers‘.
Thinking too much before you shoot is a certain way to produce photographer’s block. For a while, due to some tactlessly delivered criticism from a tutor, I kept hearing the word ‘trite’ in my head every time I went to take a shot. No doubt most – perhaps all – of the resulting images would have been trite, but to censor myself like this meant I froze so much I couldn’t take anything at all. And maybe, just maybe, had I let myself take without judgement what presented itself to me then there may have appeared the germ of a good idea in there. And even if it hadn’t, if I’d continued to shoot for long enough then the odds would have got higher that something would appear – creativity can often be a numbers game. The first shots anyone takes are frequently trite and obvious, but if they do what’s obvious and get it out of the way, they make space for something more interesting to develop.
Johnstone emphasises that there are two points to consider here. The first is that we must let go of that hesitation, that self-censorship, and allow the first impulse to emerge even if we think it’s too obvious or too dull. The second is that when we do this, what starts out as objectively obvious and dull can actually become original and intriguing to others in no time at all. It still feels obvious to the person doing it, but they’ve moved away from the obviousness that comes from conformity, to the uniquely obvious that comes from deep within them. ‘An artist who is inspired is being obvious’, says Johnstone, ‘He’s not making any decisions, he’s not weighing one idea against another. He’s accepting his first thoughts.’ Johnstone goes on to say: ‘No two people are exactly alike, and the more obvious an improvisor is, the more himself he appears’.
When we’re inspired, we’re being truly ourselves. This sounds easy but is one of the hardest things to achieve and most of us never manage it. I think that’s why great artists often appear a little crazy or eccentric or just very different to the rest of us, who’re too busy trying to appear sane to other people to allow our real thoughts and feelings to emerge. Being ourselves means ignoring the influence of what we think is acceptable, or clever, or on trend, and allowing our own uniqueness to emerge. Since we’ve been trained since babyhood not to let this happen, it’s pretty difficult for most of us to reverse the process. It can also make us feel extremely vulnerable, and that’s scary.
To a very few, this comes more easily. People like Mozart and Van Gogh weren’t trying to be original, they were just being themselves. Mozart had some success in material terms, while Van Gogh struggled in poverty, but both of them were doing what seemed ‘obvious’ to them. Van Gogh probably had one of the most original visions in art history, but he wasn’t trying to be original – he simply did what presented itself to him without self-censoring. And he didn’t realise his unique vision overnight – much of his early work is quite dull and poorly executed.
Mozart wasn’t trying to be original either – he said:
‘Why my productions take from my hand that particular form and style that makes them Mozartish, and different from the works of other composers, is probably owing to the same cause that renders my nose so large or so aquiline, or in short, makes it Mozart’s, and different from other people. For I really do not study or aim at any originality.’
If we allow our fear of being dull and unoriginal, or our awareness of other people’s opinions, or our own self-censorship to stop us doing what might seem ordinary and obvious, then we could be smothering our creativity at its very source. We need to give ourselves permission to be boringly obvious, in order to cultivate the ability to be obvious in our own unique way.
Photographers call it ‘working a scene’ –
keep going, move past the obvious shots, and you will eventually come up with something more interesting
October 10, 2012 @ 12:27 pm
Some very good advice in this post Gilly…it is indeed a thankless task trying to be original as we are a product of our times to a certain extent. I guess we should try to follow our noses…but academic study isn’t, I think, necessarily compatible bedfellows with this ethos, well not for me and not all of the time. I guess its having that belief in ourselves and seeing it through and trying to ignore the self-doubts and hesitations along the way and trying not to worry what others think.
October 12, 2012 @ 9:44 am
Penny, I frequently think academic study is at odds with creativity. It’s set up in such a way that it has to be – where you have exams/assessments there has to be some standardisation and standardisation is the enemy of freshness and originality. I think there’s also a kind of Catch-22, where tutors say ‘do your own thing and be original’, while at the same time saying ‘no, you can’t do it that way, you have to do it this way’. I wish I had an answer to the dilemma but, not surprisingly, I don’t.
October 10, 2012 @ 1:04 pm
Hi
So true what you say here.
“Being ourselves means ignoring the influence of what we think is acceptable, or clever, or on trend, and allowing our own uniqueness to emerge. Since we’ve been trained since babyhood not to let this happen, it’s pretty difficult for most of us to reverse the process.”
You may have seen this TED talk or perhaps not? The speaker (Sir Ken Robinson) is in my opinion Liverpool’s greatest export. He is very funny but more importantly has a profound message regarding creativity.
Keep doing what you do so well
Ste
Ste
October 12, 2012 @ 9:49 am
Many thanks for the link, Stephen. I think I saw this a while back, but it’s well worth watching again. Most of anything I ever say comes from the multitude of things I’ve read/watched and I’m probably rehashing many other people’s thoughts and ideas without consciously realising it. However, as one of the tutors said to us on a recent study visit, ‘whatever you do there will always be someone else out there doing the same thing, but it’s unlikely they’ll be doing it in exactly the way you would, so keep going.’ Which I guess brings us back to doing the obvious, but in our own inimitable way!
October 10, 2012 @ 1:06 pm
Hi
Forgot to leave the link to the TED talk.
http://youtu.be/iG9CE55wbtY
Ste
October 10, 2012 @ 8:03 pm
Very well-thought post! I often try to see the unexpected elements of wherever I may be shooting. It can be difficult to see something in a totally original way. Recently, I’ve been coached to not study subjects because I’ve been walking the line of lacking an interesting point of view. Talk about putting me to the challenge! Instead, it was suggested I start to study elements, to master artistic themes in a variety of subjects. This process dovetails nicely with your concluding remarks.
I’m curious, how do you think you best find a unique perspective for your photography?
October 12, 2012 @ 10:10 am
Thanks, Nate. It’s really hard to answer your question – I think I probably do pretty much what I’ve said above, and just keep shooting even if it seems dull and cliched. There are days when it stays this way, but on other days I get a flash of inspiration after a while and manage to produce something a little different.
There are exercises you can do that help to expand your way of looking at things, and I do think these help quite a bit. What I also find helpful is applying ideas from non-photographic sources. Sometimes reading or watching something on a completely different subject gives me some thoughts that can be usefully applied to photography in a practical way. I like to look at other art as well, often more than I do photography, as it’s more varied and makes me think about how the artist is seeing the world. Then I might think about how I could apply those principles to what I shoot and how I shoot it.
And then, I think the real secret of creativity is being able to play, without any regard for the outcome. We live in a very goal-focussed society and we’ve lost sight to a large extent of something simply being worth doing in its own right, regardless of whether it produces a viable end result. We can learn such a lot and get so many ideas simply by playing around aimlessly. Unfortunately it’s not something I’m very good at – there’s always this little voice in my head saying I should be doing something useful. I’m working on it!
October 16, 2012 @ 3:19 am
Hi Gilly,
Sounds like a very interesting book. Thanks for sharing some of the concepts and your take on the matter. Finding your own original vision seems like a study in contrasts or a bit of a balancing act of opposing elements, to me…studying and ignoring, learning from and disregarding, emulating and striking out on your own,….etc. That how I see the artist’s way.
October 17, 2012 @ 6:01 pm
Hi Anna,
That’s an interesting way of looking at it, and one I hadn’t really thought of – thanks for your input.