Every time there is sunny weather and blue skies someone suggests to me that I should go out and take some photographs. And I look out of the window with weary eyes and seek for a polite answer…
People seem to think that lot’s of light is always good. As it is so nice being outside during sunshine, it must be good for photography too. But light is like wine. Too much of it just gives you headache. But good wine in moderate quantities – ah, that is a whole different story.
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Being hear – I love that, except for that it’s not my invention. It’s the title of a documentary by Matthew Mikkelsen and Palmer Morse about sound ecologist Gordon Hempton. Wait, sound ecologist? Yes, that’s right Hempton explores and records the ambient sounds – and the silence of – nature.
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Currently two of the most prominent modern architects have large exhibitions. MoMA has a show on occasion of Frank Lloyd Wright’s 150th birthday. At the same time, the National Gallery of Finland, Atheneum is showing Alvar Aalto – Art and the Modern Form.
Although there are 30 years age difference between these two architects, they have much in common.
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Yesterday this blog had its first anniversary. In the past year I posted 41 posts on quite a variety of topics around photography and art – sometimes quite stretching the sujet. Still, I didn’t reach the one post per week I was aiming at and I still have to shape up… Among the many things I learned in writing the blog was the importance of discipline.
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What does it mean to live a creative life? Is it vocational bliss or just endless suffering? Is already the term “creative life” just one of these horrible catch-phrases like “living your dream” (meaning you turn them into nightmares) or does it denote something real? The writer Elizabeth Gilbert (“Eat, Pray, Love”) has talked and written extensively on the topic and has many interesting things to say about it, like “Frustration is not an interruption of the process, it is the process”. It is, however, a different statement of hers that caught my ear. In a TED-talk from 2014 she describes her creative work as her “home”, as “the place where I live”. I think this description hits home (pun intended). Let me explain.
When watching children creating it seems quickly obvious that every single one of us started out life with the gift and need to create. But relatively few of us end up to make creativity a place to live.
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Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
As you might rightly conclude from the quote, I am not quite done yet with the topic of simplicity. This time, though, I want to talk about it in the context of process.
Process in photography comprises of many things. In landscape photography it includes choice of location and time, the equipment that is used and how it is used but also how the captured results are further processed. In some ways the process defines the photographer.
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“Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that’s a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That’s not simple.
The quest for simplicity has to pervade every part of the process. It really is fundamental.”
Jonathan Ive
Imagine a rustic writing desk with a sleek silver laptop from Silicon Valley on top and a steaming cup of coffee on the side. Does an appealing picture form in your mind? It does for me. Since long I have noticed that I am most vulnerable to this kind of imagery in advertising. I wonder why this is so.
Firstly, when I try to analyze my reaction, I can’t ignore a certain disconnect between my thoughts and my emotions. I know that the implied promise of unleashed productivity in a simple rustic environment is false. Lacking inspiration is no less painful in front of a rustic desk than it is in a cubicle. Neither the desk nor the shiny gadget are creating any inspiration either. Still, my gut feeling tells me that in front of such a desk my life will be more productive and inspired.
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In the first post in this series on composition I mentioned to use nature’s design as an alternative approach to composition. Such a design would build on the relationships, energy and forces in nature.
Now it’s time to have a closer look.
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Now I got myself hooked on these shells. So I played some more with them and found out they can be quite useful for an investigation into storytelling.
There are quite a few photographers who think that every picture should tell a story. For a long time I myself was quite puzzled on what that really means, outside of documentary photography and journalism. That is until I understood that the real topic is how we process visual information.
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In case you wondered where the follow-up to the Notes on Composition post is. It will come, eventually. I am still thinking about it – and maybe too much so. It is a strange thing with creativity. Every time you think you are in the driver seat, creativity or your creative muse will kick you in the ankle and remind you that you follow her, not vice versa.
Coming back from a wonderful trip to the Indian Ocean I am still filled to the rim with new impressions and wonder about the manifold forms in nature. So I started to make a few pictures about the shells my wife and I collected at the beach (ah, ok I confess mainly my wife collected – I was more in a kind of dumb stasis trying to believe what I saw).
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