Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”― Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Over the past several years, my personal photography has enjoyed a sort of rebirth. This burst of creativity is sometimes the topic of dinner table conversations between Mary and me. She alternately credits a change in camera systems from the DSLRs that I had been using or maybe it was a change in my home and office environment to the home and the community we moved into almost ten years ago. Maybe it was both.
Certainly living and working here on what I like to call Daisy Hill has renewed my interest in a personal assignment of documenting my world that I began in Baltimore in 1971 but I think improvements in digital imaging could be another catalyst.
How can hardware and software increase a person’s pursuit of creativity? Here’s a few ways new digital tools have sparked my interest in making and sharing new images:
- Immediacy: When I open an image in Photoshop any changes that I make in color, contrast, or composition happen right now on my 5K iMac’s screen. This immediacy translates into the ability to experiment without wasting any time. I believe that trying something new, even if it turns into a disaster, stimulates a person’s creative reflex.
- Flexible Materials: Using any photo quality ink-jet printer—I need top get a new one‚—gives me access to an incredible variety of papers that matches the type of image that I’m printing becomes part of the creative process and can heighten an image’s impact.
- The Internet: The World Wide Web lets me share images with others in ways that I could never have imagined when I began working with the first digital imaging software in 1990. The Internet lets me communicate with photographers around the world as, in turn, leads to a motivation to create more and better photographs.
PS: Please follow me on Instagram or Twitter to see what I’m up to with and without cars.
Any burst in creativity that’s happened to me or might happen to you comes from inside. Your vision is also affected by inner and physical health, which was one reason why I was excited to get the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine recently. Whether it’s a new camera system, new home or new digital imaging technology or a combination of all three of these factors, I’m glad to be able to share my thoughts on the digital imaging tips, tools, and techniques that I find useful with all of you here each day this coming year. Happy New Year.
If you’re not one of those photographers who think the 1970’s was Jurassic times, Andreas Feininger’s 1973 landmark book, Photographic SeeingFor another approach to creative inspiration, pick up a copy my friend Rick Sammon’s newer book Creative Visualization for Photographers, which is available from Amazon for $34.93, as I write this.