Every once in a while I'll see an image that is so good it actually causes me physical pain. Case in point, this recent shot by Zibert of Daft Punk for DJ Hero:
It is exquisitely composed, beautifully lit, and technically very difficult to pull off. This is the kind of work I want to do, right here. I used to keep a big corkboard in my office. On the right side, I would post kick ass work from other people that I liked. On the left side, I would post images that I had done myself. Standing and looking at both sides of the board helps me figure out how to build a bridge from where I am creatively to where I want to be. This blog has effectively taken the place of the board -- it's hard to tack a video or a website to a board.
It's a never ending process, studying the space between where you are, and where you want to be, and slowly building this creative bridge. Sometimes it feels like Philip Seymour Hoffman in Synechdoche, New York. Once you feel like you have built the bridge, and are ready to cross, it's time to tear apart the foundation and make it taller, wider, stronger, and paint it a new color.
Right now, I'm feeling like I want to change the way I work. I want each image I shoot to be one of a kind. I want to spend a week, a month, a year, working on a single image. I want my work to be so good that it actually causes other photographers pain....
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3 comments:
This is a very good blog post! Zibert's stuff is really great.
Here's the funny part. I sometimes spend a week, or a month, or *blushes* six months on an image. But I find myself yearning to execute them more quickly.
Sometimes there are technical challenges that take a while to research and resolve.
But often I think I get a deafness to my creativity that stalls me.
I think we all know this feeling. We want to make pictures we already composed in our heads, but we running into practical difficulties.
Maybe we should not stare at the horizon but pay attention to the road. Sounds corny, but I think there's a truth in it.
Sometimes a picture takes months to develop and grow in your head.
And sometimes you see it comes back to you in a different way.
I heard a interview on the radio with a famous beat composer recently. Supposedly he has some of the most creative complex beats out there and is just killing it. They asked him how he comes up with his sounds. He said that one exercise he does to expand his thinking is to go through the alphabet and say each letter 10+ different ways. For example "A", A, ah, aaaa, Aaa, a-a-a, AHH!,etc... Each time he yields a different sound, volume, beats per second and so on. He does this over the sound of his music then converts his favorite verbal noise(s) into music. Maybe there is an exercise you could employ that would work visually?
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