Motivation is innate- without it, we would be apathetic, morose and without purpose. Motivation is sometimes used interchangeably with inspiration and shares some qualities in common, they both provide energy and intention towards action. But they also different. If out in the wilderness we were unexpectedly surprised by a lion, we would not wait for an artists inspiration before acting. . No, motivation would automatically kick in our need for survival, and we would take whatever action we could to ensure we did not become the lions next meal. Thus motivation is most closely associated with our basic needs for survival, to avoid pain, hunger, thirst. and so on.
We are often motivated by external events associated with pain and reward. We may be motivated by the rewards of potential promotion, an extra raise in pay, provided for example, certain performance targets are met, and the perceived associated requirements of keeping our boss happy. The extra salary may be considered just reward for the extra effort, but equally it may be considered necessary to stay financially afloat, to pay the expense of a larger family, additional mortgage and household bills, commuter costs -the list goes on. Thus motivation can be triggerred by the perceived threat of financial insecurity. The energy from such need based motivation ebbs and flows - like the so-called "monday morning" feeling -it has the "kick-butt" necessity of having to maintain momentum. Motivation is very much a part of the "to do" culture as described in a previous post. As such motivation tends not to be long-lasting and needs to be revisited.
"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing... that's why we recommend it daily."
-Zig Ziglar
"Instead of motivation look for inspiration. Inspiration comes from the same word as spirit. When you are inspired, the spirit moves you."
-Deepak Chopra
Motivation is often influenced by external sources insofar as they are perceived to affect our needs for survival, security and self-esteem. Motivation is closely associated with our ego.
Inspiration whilst at times may intertwine with motivation has a different source and quality about it. Whilst the source of motivation largely comes from without to serve basic survival needs and the needs of the ego the source of inspiration is from within and serves the higher needs of the self (sometimes described as the Higher Self, Transcendent Self, Creative Self - use your own language) The object of inspiration, may be external eg, a work of art, an image, a poem, a play, but the well of inspiration lies within. It serves the needs for self-knowledge, self -affirmation, mindfulness, and creativity. and as such serves as a channel to opening up ourselves to the stream of creativity. Inspiration is more closely associated with being, motivation more with doing.
In previous posts I have used phrases like "photo-mind" and being "in the zone" as an attempt to describe that creative space that I just occassionally reach and allows me to create rather than just take images with my camera. The relation between motivation and inspiration to this space I imagine as follows:-
Motivation always takes place outside of this space. although may have been a necessary prerequisite to compel me to pick up my camera and push myself out of the house in the first place if I had been feeling uninspired.
Inspiration is a feeling from a place within that may guide me to the works of others or guide me to writing or to my camera and to that creative space which I may refer to as "in the zone" and allows me to create . Inspiration initally exists outside and then within the zone. There is no sense of drudgery of having to do it or of watching time, it is timeless but with a sense of connection and purpose.
Where would we be without some level of motivation? Well certainly not in a good place. At best we would be apathic, or worse in a state of withdrawal from others and from nature, and at its most severe form in a state of personal self-neglect and depression. Motivation put simply, is the internal energy or the fuel that helps meet and sustain our needs. I was sufficiently motivated to write this post -the need for self expression, and those ideas sitting about in my consciousness for some time, but no particular place that I wanted for them to go -well, that is, until I discovered Google + and Blogger. We all have needs which continually seeks outward expression in some form. At base are the survival needs, to avoid hunger, dehydration, for warmth, shelter, all that equating to physical security. Beyond are psychological and social needs such as self esteem, social approval, respect, and of course love, equating to psychological and social well being. That is as far as most mammals go but we humans have another layer which grouped together form our needs for self-expression and self-realisation and within this group lies creativity and mindfulness. These layers of needs can be viewed as a heirarchy, and indeed my description is loosely based upon the heirarchy of needs as first defined by the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow back in the 1950's. In Maslow's view at its apex stands self-actualisation which approximates to full self-knowledge and understanding. In more religious terms it might equate with having a spiritual experience or vision or a state of beautification or agape. My own current goals of self- fulfillment and the aims of this blog are definitely a couple of steps down from this apex -that is, unshackling the chains and impediments to creativity. I will keep my posts on that level for I do not have sufficient self-knowledge beyond that. If I start having experiencing visions inbetween posts I will let you know - always assuming I am still capable of writing in a coherant manner.
We are not likely to be expressing our so called higher needs if our life is all about survival -stated with a large caveat. Maslow's view was that higher needs could not be fulfilled if our basic survival needs were not being met. I think it would be a limiter of truth if we were to compartmentalise all needs into boxes with non-permanable membranes. I think the so called higher needs are more maleable and can to a greater or lesser extent penetrate our survival and psycho-social needs. A person in east or central africa where finding food for survival is a full time activity may use a form of creativity to find ingenuous ways of finding food. That same person might also find comfort in having knowledge and belief in the spiritual aspects of life. Indeed where life is so unforgiving their God/s may be the only source of solace or comfort. When it comes to creativity then we have all viewed great images on Google+, Flickr or elsewhere taken in arctic like conditions where the photographer would have experienced various forms of hardship and discomfort. It has not limited their creativity. The difference of course is between experiencing hardship on a temporary basis and an acceptance of this of a necessity to creating otherwise hard to get images compared with the near pernamant state of someone living below the poverty line. A more testing case might for example be Scotts fated expedition to the Antartic in 1912. Despite the fateful outcome some remarkable pictures survive. And this in an era when cameras, tripods and accessories were much more bulkier and heavier than they are today.
I guess that while many of us have some experience of being "in the zone" when creating our images and in that experience we have certain things in common, (which I will attempt to describe in a future post) there are different levels of intensity of that experience. For example, for me it may last only minutes, perhaps whilst taking a series of shots of a single subject, to at best a few hours. It certainly does not happen every time I go out with a camera. I may go out for a day with initial enthusiasm with a clear idea of what I want to do but in the event creativity just does not switch on. The camera remains in the bag. I return from the day usually in a flat mood. "Oh well, another day" I say. Clearly all the elements that allow creativity to happen are not in place but I am not always sufficiently aware about what they are at the time. I can also have "creativity lite" or "creativity deep" In that respect it is rather like sleep, the longer it lasts generally the deeper it is.
When I talk about lite and deep I am only comparing myself with, well, myself, not with others. I can only guess that my "creativity deep" when compared to gifted individuals awash with creativitly is only equivalent to their "creativity lite". Even when I am as deeply " in the zone" as I can go and immersed in the subject I can still easily be distracted by internal or external events, a belly saying "feed me", a twitchy bladder (comes with age), a cold wind (hate it), - yes anything that has the label, itch, twitch, cold, pain, ache, singularly or in combination can do it. So, if you are one of those who can go out in arctic like conditions and get great images, I ask "How do you do it?" in a sense of how do prepare yourself mentally, not your camera or clothing outfit. Comments welcome below
Before starting this blog I hesitated and procrastinated, one of my main doubts being:- "Will I have enough to say?" Well, no problem there, it seems. The words are flowing onto the screen, and I have an outline of what my next few posts will or may contain. I will keep each post reasonably short - it is not my aim to test your attention span to destruction or to induce a "logged on but in coma" state. Hopefully in time as my blog gets more views my future posts will be mediated by you as reader, commentator, critic, provider of feedback and if you wish as a guest blogger. Next post , Inspiration, just off to find some!
"The Mindful Photographer." is the current working title for the blog. I may not have nailed down the final title competely yet. The blog title has already had a few changes in ghost form, before it saw the light of the internet. It is difficult to summarize the purpose of the blog in a short instantly meaningful description on a subject with such elusive or intangible elements.
In the first post I used "in the zone" a few times, it works for me and insofar I have seen it used elsewhere, works for others too. I considered working "zone" into the title but then it began to sound similar to certain other web sites/blogs. I considered using "flow" as in "creative flow" , it gives a dynamic edge but wondered how instantly meaningful it would be to those not close to the subject. By instantly meaningful I understand that most webusers behaviour when landing unexpectedly on a webpage is to hang around only for about five seconds before deciding whether it might be of interest or not and clicking the mouse. It is likely that you have landed on this page via my posts on Google+ which contains a fast growing band of photographers and visual artists, or you may have arrived by happenstance, either way, welcome and stay awhile.
So the title as well as the whole blog, like photography and the visual arts, like life itself, is a work in progress and thus subject to flux and change, but one that is hopefully governed by purpose. The blog will and continue to be, as long as I have the motivation, inspiration, perspiration and sense of purpose reinforced by you, as reader, commentator, contributor, and /or critic, with momentum and energy maintained as a kind of virtuous cycle until some future point when .................? (I have to get the uncertainty principle in somewhere).
This is a convenient lead into the creative process, as some of the elements, insofar as I curently understand them have been mentioned; motivation, inspiration, sense of purpose, energy, endurance(perspiration), feedback, coupled with a sense of creative uncertainty are all involved with the creative process. Whether we are seeking to take our photography beyond the level of snapshot or to move beyond our existing capability to the next level or as with any other form of creative endeavour (even writing a blog) we need these elements to be in place to some degree.
The Mindful Photographer describes a wider conceptual framework than say The Creative Photographer though the latter might be more readily recognisable. Mindful comes from the concept of Mindfulness. Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness_(psychology)) provides several overlapping definitions of mindfulness of which two seem to be particularly relevant to photography.
1. bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis,or involves
2. paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentallyIt seems to me, as photographers or creative artists we need the conditions in definitions 1 & 2 to really intentionally see our subject. We need to bring our attention to the present experience in the moment, seeing in a purposeful, intentional but non judgemental manner.
An example. I like to walk ocassionally purely for the purpose of exercise. I have a few routes around the local neighbourhood. The goal is simply to get from point A to point B in a given amount of time. I do not usually take a camera with me, it would only get in the way, my "photo-mind" is entirely switched off. My attention insofar as it is in the present will focus perhaps on my breathing, my stride length, any aches and pains that might slow me down (at my age there are usually a few), I see in front of me simply to avoid obstacles and traffic, but always the goal of reaching point B is in mind.
The next day I may take a similar route with my camera. My "photo-mind" , hopefully, like my camera, is switched on. My intention, attention, my consciousness, what I see of my surroundings, is entirely different. It is more, in the moment, here and now. I intentionally see potential subjects about me, in the form of light, shade, colour, form, composition, movement, etc. Hence my liking of the second definition - "paying attention in a particular way; on purpose ........". with our camera, to our seeing eye, we begin creating, "... in the present moment". Hopefully I press the shutter in the "Decisive Moment" as Henri Cartier-Bresson would say.as all the elements that make a composition come together as a whole in the minds eye.
We have different streams of consciousness to match our varying life situations. Imagine being a commuter, or having to rush to the airport. With "photo-mind" consciousness entirely switched on we might take some fine images, but we would be very late in reaching our destination, or not even make it at all. Although we might have those fine images, that might not impress our boss or client. Not very practical.
However the main purpose of this blog is look at our "photo-mind" consciousness, either to enhance our levels of mindfulness or to gain insight into the blocks to our creative processes as they occur. We may regard the state of mindfulness as a vessel, like the banks of a river, that allows the creative processes to flow in a directed and purposeful manner. The wider the banks, the deeper the river bed, the less obstacles lying in the way, the greater the flow.
I am not exceptional in probably spending more than 99% of my waking life in doing mode. We all do it. This is the world, of business, to do lists, the diary, the ipad, of travelling into the future in our minds to the next event on our agenda. This is also the world of the past, perhaps past regrets, failures, of "if only" (I had taken a different direction in life, etc), it is a world full of concepts and beliefs, often critical, about ourselves, about others, about the world we perceive and inhabit.
If we could only stop, slow down, take time out perhaps only for minutes in any given day, and begin to see in the present moment, to experience what is, rather than to preconceive and to judge, we can begin to make room in our busy world for our creative potential to grow. To allow "photo-mind" space to simply be. and in the process become better photographers, better artists. It is the difference between doing and being. We all have a need to live in and experience the present. That, of itself, is motivation to continue our process as photographers and artists.
Well, best laid plans etc. Having drafted several posts ready for upload I saved them to a USB stick which I promptly mislaid. Fortunately I have now recovered said stick so my posts will shortly be back on track. Time for a back up plan though!
A welcome to the New Year and welcome to my new blog, about photography and the creative process. The main goal of the blog is to explore whats helps and what hinders our creative potential. Not, in some abstract or impersonal sense, but YOUR creativity and MY creativity. We all have creative abilities, at least as potential for our hobby or profession of photography, painting or any other of the visual arts. Without the creative spark we can experience apathy, frustration or disappointment. Indeed the creative energy waxes and wanes or sometimes seems to desert us entirely, occasionally for explainable reasons, but at other times it can be all a bit of a mystery - I know. My first post is a summary of my own personal journey and I hope you find it an interesting read and are able to identify with some of my experiences in and out of the creative process.
It has taken about fifty years to come to this point. At least that is how far back along my timeline that I can date my interest in photography. At about 11years old I won a school photo competition. I remember that the camera was a Kodak Brownie 127 - definitely a point and shoot. And that is basically what I did, point, shoot and hope for the best. But even at that age I like to think that I was formulating a sense of what made a good composition. My photography bloomed and on leaving school I worked for a commercial photographer in London, first as an errand boy, then in print finishing, and finally to the darkroom. I also continued photography as a hobby and rigged up a darkroom at home in the loftspace. It was far from ideal - near freezing in winter, baking in summer, but for black and white printing it was ok and I managed. In those conditions colour was a step too far unless you were looking for uncontrolled bizarre cross processing type effects ( I was not- although it may have been quite acceptable as the hippy generation which was then in full swing).
Yes it was the dawn of flower power, the swinging sixties and the head banging seventies, although I never really grew my hair long enough or wore the beads. However I did take an interest in the alternative psychologies, holistic therapies and encounter groups that were also popular during this period as part of the counter culture and "doing your own thing". There was a focus on unleashing "creative potential" but somehow I never made connections between that and my photography at the time.
In fact my interest in psychology was taking me in another direction and in my mid- twenties I began training as a psychiatric nurse. This involved a change of address and the loss of my darkroom. I was not to have my own darkroom again mainly due to lack of space and other priorities. My amateur photgraphy continued, on and off over the next few decades. I had graduated to using various slr's - I think my first was the Russian Zenit -E, not great but at least I became proficient in using manual exposure and focusing. However I had no control over the output. Since I was at least proficient in darkroom skills and knew what a good print looked like I was usually disappointed when the results came back from the lab. I did not always have the spare cash so I often relied on the high street drugstore (oh dear!) although you could not always rely on the extra quality that you paid for from "professional" labs either. So my photography got rather stuck in a cycle of initial enthusiasm and inspiration followed by inevitable disappointment. Unsurpringly there were many fallow years during these decades when I simply did not "do photography" at all and I switched to less frustrating interests. The lesson from this period is that my creative potential was there but i did not always have the technical means to express it, thus leading to disappointment and frustration -or, so I thought
And then in the 90's came the digital age - I was already an early adopter of computers ( a Sinclair Spectrum was the first I think) so I could see the potential. To regain control of my output, through a digital darkroom on my computer and move beyond the typical 7x5 Boots prints I was getting at the time was very tempting. My consumption of photography magazines increased I started getting distinctly "geeky" about cameras again, reading all the test reports available. I was not initially convinced on quality issues but once camera sensors started moving past 6mp I was ready to jump.
So I now have my digital cameras( currently a Panasonic G2 and GH2) and digital darkroom (Lightroom 3 and Elements) - I have the technology and I have the skillset -the decades of experience should have paid off - there are no barriers and no end to my creativity in terms of producing brilliant images. Right? er, well Wrong! My creativity can still turn on and off like a light switch. And I have no excuses or processing lab to blame for my failure to have many images to match some of the brilliant images that I see daily on Google+. Oh, well, there was the time of my computer crash a couple of years back when I lost many images on my hard drive.But that is another story and not an excuse. Another lesson painfully learned -it only reinforces the mantra "backup, backup, and backup again to an external drive".
I know when the light switch is on -when I am "in the zone" so to speak. I am standing there and the scene is ready to be taken. I may have passed this way before when the light switch was off with my "unseeing" eye and not noticed anything special. But now I am "in the zone"and am absorbed by the scene. The lighting is right, I "see" the composition and all its elements, the camera has become an extension of my hand - I do not have to fumble about with the settings, everything is prepared and I shoot. I may well change my position a litlle, try a differant angle, adjust the focal length, all this is instinctive,done without thinking, a reflex act, an "in the moment" action. I will know when to move on, perhaps to a scene nearby that I had surveyed earlier.
This "in the moment" activity may in fact last many minutes or indeed a few hours (on a good day) - though whilst in this experience it feels as no time has passed at all. I know when the time has passed though, usually some distracting thoughts enter my head, or belly starts giving me messages -"I want food", etc. etc. I certainly know when I am not "in the zone" I have difficulty really "seeing" the scene, to the extent the camera may not come out of the bag, I am unsure of the composition or what to do to take it beyond a normal decent snapshot, I may fumble about indecisively with the camera settings. I may settle for the snapshot, or just not bother. When at some point later -perhaps weeks later - I am viewing the images in Lightroom -I can usually tell during what time frames I was in the zone and when I was most definitely not. Usually the images are technically ok but when I am not "in there" my self assessment vary from average, mediocre to "why on earth did I take that from that position?". Images taken in the zone have a better artistically creative look and a higher hit rate
So now that I have set the scene I hopefully have given an indication of what this blog is about. I will leave most of the techie/geeky stuff to those bloggers/web sites out there already well established and doing a far better job than I ever could. Where I do give space it will mainly be recommending sites that I have found informative and useful. Likewise with techniques. For example, I think Lightroom 3 is great, and for me it has certainly reduced technically any restraints or barriers to my digital output - I could certainly blog about Lightroom. But there already great Lightroom resources out there which I might also refer to from time to time. However I have yet to discover many sites / blogs that major on aspects of Photography and Creativity. Perhaps they will emerge when I start blogging and researching more, and this can be a niche blog that brings all these aspects together.
As my blog already suggests I am no expert, and make no claim to be on any aspect of photography or creativity and am still trying to learn when it comes to aspects of my own creativity and its barriers. That said, I do have a combined interest of photography and humanistic psychology (of which more in future posts). I would like to make this blog as interactive as possible, by inviting both comments critique and guest posts. Much of what can be said and learned about in relation to photography and creativity would also apply to the other visual arts, painting, drawing, sculpture, crafts etc. so I would be keen to hear from you if you have this background too. I will concentrate on photography as this is my experience and background. If you have reached this far thanks for reading and please start commenting
P.S Initially I will make my main post on a weekly basis with perhaps some shorter posts inbetween as well as responding to comments as needed. As far as blogging goes I am an absolute newbie so I welcome feedback on that too, anything from the look and layout of the blog to the content. I am looking upon this as something of an experiment, nothing is fixed in stone, it is a work in progress, and can be changed where feedback suggests it needs to be
- Dennis
