Turning Tides of Creativity – Back To The Soul of Photography

Garlic in a wholesale market, Dihua St, Dadaocheng, Taipei

One of the distinguishing facets of the digital age of photography has been the technological advances and innovations. Unlike in the film era, where a camera body might be used for decades, these days it seems we’re upgrading and replacing bodies at a frequency never imagined a decade ago. While these advances are undoubtedly opening new frontiers in photography, all too often we find ourselves caught up in an endless cycle of more megapixels where the equipment specifications are more important than the actual photographs.

I’ve previously expressed some of my thoughts about creativity in a two part series entitled Musings on Creativity and Seeing. You might like to read part 1 and part 2 in conjunction with today’s post. There’s also a giveaway associated with this post so leave a comment to have a chance at winning. More on that at the end of the post.

To my mind, there does seem to be a turning of the tide away from equipment and back towards creativity and artistic vision. Photographers such as Chase Jarvis, David DuChemin, Chris Orwig and many others are at the forefront of this movement back to the soul of photography. In many ways, this is a breath of fresh air. Photography, as with any artistic pursuit, should be more about taking the artist’s vision and allowing it to be expressed than it should be about the tools.

For that’s all the cameras, lens, software and so forth really are. Tools. They are the means to bring forth the creativity that exists in ones mind and put it into some kind of tangible form. All the pixel peeping in the world doesn’t matter if the vision is lacking. Conversely, when the vision is there, a way will be found to express that regardless of the tools available.

So now it’s over to you. What does creativity mean to you? How do you express your vision and what inspires you? I welcome your comments, thoughts and ideas – let’s start some discussion on this. To give you a little more incentive, I have a couple of things to give away. A few weeks ago, I asked Steven Pressfield some questions based on his book The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. I have a prize package containing a copy of this book as well as my 2010 calendar Renegade Beauty | Taiwan 2010 to give away to a random commenter. This giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. So leave your comments and thoughts on creativity and be in with a chance to win. If you need some more inspiration, why don’t you take a look over my whole Musings series where I share thoughts and tips on how you can further your creative goals.