Creativity vs Discipline
Photography is often considered a discipline that you either have a knack for or not. I can recall any number of people that have remarked simply that I’m ‘talented’, however I’d often defer them to hard work and discipline if for no other reason than to humble myself. I can recall an art teacher I had in high school that remarked more reservedly that I had a keen eye for evoking unique compositions. This was a much more tepid remark that I often resort to using as a translation for the former.
There is more to photography than instinct, or even discipline. Sometimes an image is created as the result of both those things however on occasion it’s a result of stubbornness. Creativity often lies in testing ideas and exploring new things, studying new techniques and experimenting with them for yourself.
I’ve read articles about photographers who revisit locations dozens, even hundreds of times and often come home with something unique to show. The first time you’re in a new location it can be almost overwhelming. You’re at the mercy of the weather and you know you have finite time and limited resources; you have to quell your stock of ideas and triage the worse. A mentor can help filter those ideas with you but that often obfuscates the process that comes with learning to trust yourself. Throughout my career I’ve noticed that more often than not the ideas you prioritise align with your creative instincts. Initially you’ll have several ideas at once and you test them simultaneously which inevitably leads to an incoherent image. Worst comes to worst you can at learn from these moments. In time this leads you to understand what hasn’t worked before and what has potential to work, which inevitably teaches you to trust yourself.
The more often you return to the same location or subject the fewer ideas you’ll have. It’s these moments that we have to explore lateral thinking because you’ve exhausted your instincts. Sometimes creativity strikes when boredom has forced your hand, but that tends to happen far and few between. Having the discipline to either experiment or refine ideas is where I think a lot of value is in any creative field both as a producer and consumer. It’s like watching a movie for the fifth time, you start looking for details and subtleties in the same storyline because you no longer find grit in the main plot. This is the nature of humans when trying to get themselves to explore new endeavours within familiar territories, it’s why we have fan fiction… You have to get creative when you plateau.
Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the conditions will be perfect, in which case it takes a special kind of photographer to capture a bad image. However when the plateau hits it’s important to recognise the need to persevere. A few tactics I’ve attempted have included limiting myself to a certain lens or using a lens I usually wouldn’t (using a telephoto for a landscape is unconventional, for example. Likewise a wide angle for a portrait). I’ve focused on new subjects, tested methods and techniques I’d read about online or even tested new weather conditions to create unique effects.
In the end these ideas often lead to disappointment.
However on occasion they’ll force you to view a location/ subject/ client in a new light, which will push you into being a more flexible creator and ultimately will broaden your instincts. Pushing your creativity in a manner that requires discipline will eventually force you to the periphery of what is possible in photography as a discipline rather than a hobby. You’ll start asking yourself what if questions. What if I can take a long exposure at sunrise? What if I can take a startrail image in an urban setting? You’ll start to rely less on the conditions being right and you’ll create unique images that only you can create regardless of circumstance because of your experiences. It’ll endow you with a more sophisticated recycle rate because not only will you know what has the potential to work and how and why, but you will more readily understand what definitely won’t work, which is just as invaluable.
Unfortunately this is the side of photography - indeed, any creative field - where the only way to develop will be to get involved and do the reps. This isn’t something that can be coached, having “an eye” for photography is instinct but doing the work takes a certain kind of discipline that separates amateurs from professionals.
Because I have this mentality I trust my instincts now more than I ever have, and that’s more valuable to me than the images themselves. So I implore you to stick with it when you’re stuck, because I’ve plateau’d more times than I can count.
