Inspiration

[Struan Gray]

Where do people get their inspiration from?

For me, photography is a too tidy, too closed world, with a tendency to pat itself on the back for having already got things completely right. I rarely feel refreshed and invigorated from looking at other people's photographs. Paintings on the other hand always fascinate and have always done so. Likewise many many pieces of glass, pottery and textiles.

I am not having a go at photographers. Well, not much. I would be interested to hear about where other camera owners draw their inspiration. Am I so very odd to find mine in other artforms?


http://web.telia.com/~u46133221/pics/blackthorn_mist.jpg
A tribute

[medform-norm]

Struan,
I never knew it was supposed to be odd to draw inspiration from whatever you chose. Looking at photographs by collegues does not inspire me, it may give a hint, suggest and idea. I see it more as comparing notes. Looking at work you dislike is a very important part of that.
The only thing I would find odd is that you only find inspiration in other art forms and not anywhere else. I would find that limiting.
BTW I liked your Jackson Pollock :)

[Struan Gray]

I find visual inspiration everywhere. Sometimes I feel I have reached that exalted level of sensitivity where diverse taste is functionally equivalent to no taste. But I was trying to be brief; and relevant to the forum at hand: the aesthetic thrill of the proof of Green's Theorem is not something many of my photographer friends have ever "got".

[GPS]

Pity the tribute is out of focus - would be a good ad for the need of eye glasses.

[Struan Gray]

That's not blur. That's gesture

[Ron Marshall]

I works for me out of focus, and would be dull and lifeless and flat and pedestrian if it had been in focus. As is, it draws me into the image and elicits a sense of wonder. But one persons tribute is anothers trash.

[Walt Calahan]

Struan

For me your image is a tribute to Jackson Pollock!

Using selected focus so that only part of the scene is sharp, combined with all the intersections, and seeing repeating tonal and color range, for me, is definitely a photograph from the abstract expressionist school.

I don't know "Green's Theorem," but well done.

In the past, I've tried to use cubism, i.e. Nude Descending Staircase, in my photography by using timed strobe firings with camera movement. The first image on my "People" page of my web site is an example (http://www.walterpcalahan.com).

Keep up the tributes!

[Robert McClure]

Struan,

A wonderful photograph which works for me. Out of focus? There was a time when a cinematographer would NEVER allow lens flare to show up in his final edited work. It is now part of the grammar. Your photograph fairly hypnotized me. Then again, that's just me. Wow!

Thanks!

[Struan Gray]

Ron, Walter, Robert. Thanks.

I wasn't really fishing for compliments. No really. Really. Well, perhaps a bit :-)

I have always been drawn to images that have a strong sense of line. Classical drawing, cartoons, sketches and even cross-hatched engravings, have all fed a fascination with how to create volume with essentially one-dimensional means. When I found myself getting more and more abstract in my photography I was naturally drawn to the abstract expressionists. My favourite is Mark Tobey, something of an outsider to the mainstream movement, but a painter and print maker with a tremendous subtlety of expression and a contemplative spirituality that makes the New York crowd seem very loud and raucous.

That said, Pollock is another favourite, and it was a delight to find this patch of hawthorn, blackthorn and bramble seedlings conforming to his highly individual sense of structure and form. I don't often copy my inspirations so blatently, but in this case there was no choice.

Walter, I liked the Duchamp reference - and the rest of your site. Photography has always had a somewhat supine relationship with painting, but I like to think that it is possible to be inspired without resorting to fawning plagiarism.

Anyone else care to share their muses?

[GPS]

Ron, Walter - that's not blur, that's gesture.

[Ron Marshall]

gps, Yes I know.

Walter, your portaits show so much life and joy and energy and character.

[Walt Calahan]

GPS

Yes, gesture.

Thanks for suggesting a better word. I always struggle with the correct phrase. ;-)

I like that. Must use more often. Great suggestion.

Gesture

Bravo!

[Walt Calahan]

Thank you Ron!

[Bill_1856]

What image? All I get is a little red cross in a box.

[Eric Biggerstaff]

I am inspired by MANY things that excite me and make me want to go out and make photographs.

Photographers - I love looking at photographs, all kinds of them. Have been doing it since college and I never tire of it ( although some work bores the heck out of me). Attending shows and openings, looking at monographs, walking around my house looking at the images I own all inspire to me keep at it.

Paintings - I think I was 3 when my parents took me to my first gallery to look at paintings, and I have been going ever since ( I am now 41). Other art forms always inspire me and I enjoy looking at paintings very much. Jackson Pollock was mentioned above and while I appreciate what he did, after seeing several of his paintings they no longer really do it for me - time changes taste. Modern sculpture doesn't really do it for me but you mention glass art which I find fasinating, I enjoy the free flow forms and the way light plays around and through it. Very neat.

My Children - I have two sons ( 4 and 18 months) and I am always inspired by them. They don't inspire me to always make photographs, but what they do is remind me how fun it is to explore and learn, how enjoyable the moment I am in is. I remember this when I am out photographing.

If I sat here long enough I could come up with many more. Of course, I enjoy the landscape which I always find inspiring, but I think my photographs come from somplace else and the landscape is just vehicle to realize my inspiration and feelings ( geeeze, getting a little deep).

I like the image you included with your post. I think at times we can learn too much, that somehow education replaces inspiration. And that is not just limited to photography, it is true of all art forms.

You mention that "photography is a too tidy, too closed world, with a tendency to pat itself on the back for having already got things completely right", I think I understand where you are coming from but I also believe this is true in any formal, well educated art circle you will run into.

What I find often is that the more well educated the group, the more back patting goes on. Often, when I look at works of art made by not so well educated and not so well trained artists I see much more love of the art and an idea of emotion then I do when I am looking at works on a museum wall.

Great post Straun and thanks for asking.

Eric

www.ericbiggerstaff.com

[Nick Morris]

My sixth grade teacher loved art and taught art history along with world history. I still have the text she used, "A Child's History of Art". I would draw all the time; cars, people, etc. As I got older, I followed my friends into sports, and got away from art. I thought artists were born, not made. I never believed I had any talent, and failed to recognize how much hard work went into creating art. It was realively late when I recognized the potential of photography. That recognition and appreciation came from Aperture's Masters of Photography book on Steiglitz. Since then the work of Strand, Weston, Callahan, Gene Smith, Sally Mann, Nick Nixon, Kertez, and so on have served to reinforce that appreciation of photography's potential. For me the work of painters, sculptors, musicians, writers, poets, and filmmakers, as well as photographers have been inspirational, and influential.

[Michael Gordon]

Struan: I am not inspired by the red X. :) Cannot see your photograph.

[tim atherton]

"Struan: I am not inspired by the red X. :) Cannot see your photograph."

must just be you - shows up here fine

[Ralph Barker]

Finding inspiration in other art forms seems perfectly reasonable to me. Ultimately, I think inspiration can be either random (i.e. one waits for it to happen), or a function of mind management (i.e. doing anything to promote it). Each person probably needs to find what works best for them under various circumstances, whether that's flipping through a photography book, viewing other art forms, or listening to a nice Bach fugue.

For me, seeing almost anything upside down on a large ground glass gets my juices going.

[tim atherton]

<img src="http://www.blindspot.com/issue19/images/misrach.jpg"

Misrach

(there are some closer to yours among the series)

As for inspiration - I do enjoy looking at other photographers work. But I was listening to an interview with a concert pianist yesterday and when preparing to work on a new piece, even though he may have listened to all the different recordings of it in the past, when he begins work on it to make it his, he consciously doesn't listen to any other interpretations at that point.

Other influences on my photography - for me, poetry and novels in particular, as well as film. But lots of influence from painting and drawing of all sorts (working on a collection of 15th - 117th Chinese painting and scrolls right now is really inspiring me, for example - with new work from outside my existing experience).

(as for ceramics - I've always loved Takeshi Yasuda's work, but I'm not sure it has influenced my photography - although his grandfather worked with old large plate cameras in Japan and took some of those classic B&W Japanese LF photographs early last century)

[Stephen Willard]

For me the camera is secondary. It is the experience that gives me inspiration. I must be experiencing something I love or will not photograph period. I do not look to other people's work for inspiration because the process of examining other work is not experiential. Without the experience there is no inspiration and there will be no photograph. It is as simple as that!

So when summer comes and the snows clear form the high peaks of the Colorado mountains, I will grab my llamas, my cameras, and my camping gear and head into remote drainages for many weeks with excitement and anticipation. And when I unearth an image from the land my breath will shorten and my heart will pound with excitement. I will not care if anyone likes the image or not. I will not care if anyone buys the images or not. I will only photograph what gives me pleasure, what excites me, and what inspirers me. Whatever that may be.



http://www.stephenwillard.com/gallery/imageBig/NS-MB-10A.jpg
Fridgid Rock and Spruce in August

[paulr]

lots of things, including poetry, music, sadness, restlessness, paintings, and other people's pictures. what finally inspires me to photograph is a familiarity with my surroundings that breeds curiosity. it took me a while to figure this out, but i'm mostly insprired to photograph near where i live or spend a lot of time, and it starts with noticing little things i hadn't seen before. then one day, i might think, "i want to explore that with a camera."

i discovered many of my photographic "influences" after the fact. people told me that some of my work looked like a series done by friedlander in the 70s or by robert adams in the 80s. it would inspire to look at work by these people (who always seemed to have beaten me by a good ten or twenty years) and see the parallels. in general i think the similarity comes from having lived in a similar world as these people, and from having looked at the work that had originally inspired them (the early modernists, etc.).

[Gary L. Quay]

I am consistantly inspired by the works of other photographers. The way they use color, texture, depth, subject matter, all speak to me in wonderous ways. I don't try to copy them, but I do try to draw upon their experience. Light itself has become an art form for me, whether it paints the world with color or shadow--sometimes brillient, sometimes muted. I've learned to be aware of light at all times by first seeing what it did for other photographers, and later by seeking out that light in my own work.

--Gary

[Walt Calahan]

After seeing Stephen's "Fridgid Rock and Spruce" I'm inspired to get some llamas!

Beautiful!

[GPS]

Misrach - now that's a heck of a gesture!

[tim atherton]

Struan,

I just sent you an image file - it's safe to open if it gets there...

[Struan Gray]

Fantastic replies. Thank you all.

Sorry to those who can't get the image. It is hosted on the free space I get with my email and broadband and I don't think reliability of service is a high priority for them :-) Reload and reload again.

My two year old is squally and restless tonight, so I'll let the ideas stew in my head till morning rather than try and rush a reply.

Please keep them coming.

[Emrehan Zeybekoglu]

I think being inspired by others' work is quite natural. I know I'm inspired by other works of art and other photographers' images; however, I don't think there is a one-to-one relationship between what I see produced by others and my own photographs.

Personally, as someone else stated above, I have to experience something. It is any kind of experience that counts in the final analysis.

Cheers..

[Alec Jones]

Hey Bill: You're the lucky one! Believe me, you didn't miss a thing.

If I had produced that, I would be inspired to focus better, after looking for a better subject. Other than that, it is great.

[tim atherton]

you could have also been insired to develop a deeper imagination?

[medform-norm]

"If I had produced that, I would be inspired to focus better, after looking for a better subject. Other than that, it is great."

You surely must be known for your gentle, quiet manners and your charming personality.

[Kirk Gittings]

Tim,

" insired to develop a deeper imagination"

Does pedigree really matter when it comes to creativity? (bad joke)

[David Martin]

Walts site was really depressing. I'm tempted to just pack up and go home. How can I ever aspire to be able to capture people in such a fantastic way. Every photograph is worth so much more than the few seconds I spent looking at them.

But then, I am home and noone cares about my pictures except me and those to whom they bring pleasure. Truly inspirational. One thing I really must try when I get my system up and goign (nearly there - thanks Struan) is to explore that relationship between photographer and subject. This will be something I have never really had the confidence to try before. My pictures have been too timid when it comes to people.

Thanks for some fantastc inspiration. I haven't been in a photographic darkroom for nearly ten years, was thoroughly depressed by consumer print and slide processing, excited by my forays into digital, and even more excite by MF film. Soon I'll be shooting LF and trying to capture that esence that is life around us. Many ideas, so little time.

..d

[paulr]

in the future i'll try to get all my inspiration from jj.

and if people stop liking me because of these new inspirations, i'll be sure to keep coming back anyhow.

[Ralph Barker]

Except that jj's posts only last until a moderator stops by.

[Oren Grad]

You could analyze it on at least three levels. First is why bother photographing at all. Second is where one's overall sensibility comes from. Third is what makes one photograph any particular thing.

On the more general levels, it's David Vestal's writings and pictures that enabled me to understand what I was doing and why, with a helping hand indirectly from William Clift and directly from Carl Weese. At the level of specific pictures, it operates on an intuitive level through direct experience: I go out with a camera because it's what I need to do, and if something seems to resonate, and the specific tools at hand are appropriate to the situation, I'll stop and make a picture.

[Struan Gray]

Oren, I like your catagories. The more general problem of motivation and purpose is a wide one. I was hoping to hear something about where people found the spark of desire and wonder that makes all the effort worthwile. I did, which was good.

gps. Alec: I wasn't looking for validation of my own inspiration, but rather for other people to share theirs. Knock mine all you like: it keeps me humble.

Sorry to those who can't see the photo. I was wondering if the free webspace I had was suitable for serving images, now I know. I don't know how Telia's download limiters work - what sort of activity trips them - but the image now comes and goes, even for me. For a more reliable view, I posted it in this thread at acutance.net:

http://www.acutance.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=594

Like Paul I tend to find my inspiration after the fact. I know a lot of photographers are wary of intellectualising their work, but I have always found it useful to analyse and inspect what I have done, partly to help the editing process and partly to help my seeing when next out in the field. Ironically, this photo was part of a project where I was trying to shake off influences that I felt had embedded themselves too deeply in me. I decided that my dissatisfaction with my own photos was because I had too rigid an idea of what made a good photo, and I was tending to head out with a camera looking for photos that looked like photos were supposed to look. Thus started a journey into abstraction of line that is still in progress.

James IV of Scotland once conducted an experiment in cultural isolation. Two orphan siblings were placed on an island in the Firth of Forth and those who delivered food to them instructed not to talk to them under any circumstances. The idea was to see what language they ended up speaking. The conclusion from this experiment was that Scots was the universal Ur-language, since, miraculously, that was what the wee mites spoke to each other.

I don't know what I knew when I took this series. I know that the formal aspects of western abstract painting and oriental landscapes in the Chinese tradition were in the forefront of my mind. I also know that I tried to work very loosely, taking photos of things that grabbed my attention, and only worrying about why they grabbed my attention later. I found out afterwards that photographers like Meatyard, Sommers, Metzker and Freidlander have all had or still have similar concerns, and, as with the children on Inchcolm, I strongly doubt that my isolation was as hermetic as I had supposed.

What I do know is that I get a visceral thrill from these sorts of pictures. The sense of frustrated or stochastic symmetry; the all-over, centreless feel of widepread activity, autonomous yet interrelated; the sheer visual treat of the patterns and tones. All add up to a 'wow' that persists even after I have explained to myself why I feel it. To me, that is inspirational.

[Walt Calahan]

What inspires me to photograph is simply the wonder and privilege of opening one's eyes to see.

Why so simple an answer?

Because at 2 years old, I lose the sight in my left eye due to an accident.

Now at 49 years old, when I open my eyes, I am reminded how precious the gift of eyesight is because I'm missing half.

What we see is worth celebrating.

For you Christians out there, Luke has Jesus saying to his apostles "Blessed are you who see what you see."

For Jews, God said when making the universe "It was all good."

I'm sure all faith's have something similar to say about seeing the wonder around us.

Even if you don't have a "religious" way of believing in the world, it's a pretty amazing place to look at!

[GPS]

"it keeps me humble". Humble? What is humble in self declaring a blur as a gesture? I would say - pretentious.

[chris jordan]

Some of you crabby old guys need to get eyeglasses. Struan's picture is not out of focus at all; it is in perfect focus, just with low depth of field. I think it's a fabulous photo, and would love to own a print. Sruan, do you have others like this?

[tim atherton]

and you'd figure old duffers who need glasses would realise that the whole world ain't in focus anyway :-)

[medform-norm]

It seems to some people here selective use of depth if field is an unknown photographic concept. It is apparent that Struan composed the image consciously, with the selective use of dof. The image wouldn't have been interesting if it would be sharp all over. I like it especially because, although abstract and although referring to Pollock, you can still see what it is: tangled branches.

Now it's okay if you don't like an image, but the pubescent comments of some people are really uncalled for.

[GPS]

"it is in perfect focus, just vith low depth of field." I always thought that "low depth of field" is a synonyme to out of focus for what is not in the depth of field... Eyeglasses are good for picture taking - some of the old guys see then better what is out of focus (when in perfect focus with just low depth of field).

[darr]

I think we can draw inspirations from all types of emotional events. I found myself inspired to photograph our home only after we took a few good hits from hurricanes Katrina and Wilma. I drew on the inspirations brought on by the destructive forces of the storms and the debris they left behind.

http://www.photoscapes.com/snapshots/after_the_storm.jpg

I was initially asked by our insurance company to take some pictures of the damage and then I became artistically inspired to show my true emotions about the whole ordeal. I submitted the usual color shots plus this sepia panoramic view after my son told me the sepia shot was true to how he felt as well. Happily the insurance company paid our claim and a little above what we expected. I find inspiration in all types of emotional events, but for me the best ones come from true experiences. Just my 2 cents worth.



FWIW this picture was shot prior to the second clean-up and when the lights were finally back on (about three weeks after Wilma). What we lost that is missing in the photo are 18' hedges surrounding the entire property, palm trees, security gates that were connected to the front columns, lighting, five acres of farm fencing, and a guest cottage.

[GPS]

Darr, I even think that inspiration is impossible without emotions. Emotions are the trigger of inspirational forces in us. Without emotions you are just a photographic eunuch -voyeur, at best.

[Struan Gray]

gps I'm sorry you think me pretentious. Sorry too that you cannot express your dislike of me and my photograph in a way that allows for dialogue. FWIW, I'm a Brit, and my natural mode of expression is ironic self-deprecation. I don't expect you now to accept that my gesture comment was written with a wry smile on my lips, but next time you feel your gorge rising in public you might want to at least entertain the possibility. I'm not sure the person you think you are dealing with could ever have written this: http://tinyurl.com/p727n (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.climbing/browse_thread/th
read/1ae44123d5e7c6c3).

Thanks muchly for the positive comments. You know who you are :-)

Chris, the world very rarely conforms to my colour prejudices and I accumulate photographs that I feel are truly 'mine' at a glacial pace. The real project behind this image is in B+W. I am scanning, editing, rejecting and refining the images right now, with an ambition to turn them into a book. My twin ammanuenses, Perfectionism and Procrastination, are however holding back this masterpiece in their usual highly effective way.

Darr, I agree wholeheartedly. My own concentration on the local, the personal and the miraculously mundane was a direct response to fatherhood.

[Bee Flowers]

Anyone who thinks it's a 'fabulous' photo needs more than just eyeglasses. By cropping so tightly that only a repeating pattern remains, it's more like a wallpaper design than like those truly exciting ragtag Pollock fractals. Misrach's picture is so much more thrilling, though not all that Pollockian due to the center blob. Stuan's picture is a nice start in an investigation of such subject matter, though.

[adrian tyler]

don't you guys all know... there has not been a REAL artist since botticelli, nope, 'n aint been a REAL sculptor since Miguelangelo... REAL inspiration, divine inspiration...

but i suppose as far as us mere mortals are concerned we have to get it as best we can. some times seeng bad art can be as inspiring than "good" art, i think that in that microsecond when we think "i could do better than that", in that moment we actually could, so just how to make that moment of clarity last.

stuan's magic photo is an example, i think is more nourishing the misrach version, but then i feel that the whole misrach thing is a bluff, even though i am attracted to those lovley prints and some of the motifs, but i feel it is rather like eating a feast in a dream, wake up hungry, not so the sum of its parts: joel mayerowitz "cape light", with a bit of the german new school sprinkled on seasoning.

yes, inspiration has to be more than clever assimilation, and perhaps, even divine...

[GPS]

Com'on Brit, take your guts, nobody dislikes you. I just humbly think that your picture is a pretentious piece of ... gesture, did you say? Live well!

[Struan Gray]

Bee, you voiced my own inner criticism, and the technical demands on following up on that criticism are precisely why I started using LF. I still love my picture though. Many composers have a fondness for their early quartets, whatever they may have later achieved with symphonic resources.

[paulr]

"Many composers have a fondness for their early quartets, whatever they may have later achieved with symphonic resources"

has this picture been leading you to anything else? even just other quartets? i like the image, and while i agree with some of the suggestions that it isn't a self-contained magnum opus, my sense is that this is not due to any shortcomings of the picture but rather to its wanting to be part of a larger body of work that has room to explore something.

sorry if that's a run on sentence.

anyone telling you that a blur is a flaw or that the word 'gesture' is pretentious needs to get out of the house more.

[David Martin]

Loved the Telemark tale, veldig flott!

The tangle of branches passed my by at first, probably because on screen it is too small and not high enough res. The nteh discussion of low depth of field made me look at it again. I'm sure it would work better in B+W but the idea of one amongst many similar is nice. I suppose what inspires me is to create photographs that have a story they do not tell but leave for the observer to ponder.

Just had the BBC put one of my pictures up sideways on their Scotland Picture Perfect section.. Bah! Not LF so I shouldn't really mention it but a cheap 2MP digital (Canon A60) instead.

..d

[Struan Gray]

David, I think it almost looks better that way round :-)

Paul, I would be very happy with a coherent cycle of quartets. It didn't do Bartok's reputation any harm. Or Eliot's. It's just that I envy those who do easily that which I find difficult, and I would love to be able to play the sort of syncopated visual rhythms that Friedlander in particular handles with such great proficiency. We'll see.

I end with another tribute. A raid on the inarticulate that brought back much booty.


http://web.telia.com/~u46133221/pics/mosputtered.jpg
Cubist Close Packing

[tim atherton]

I'm guessing that's RRRSF (Really really really small format)?

[Struan Gray]

URSF.

Digital too.

QT's going to run out of slack on this one....

[Walt Calahan]

I'm into the modern . . . Kronos Quartet.

They are to music as Jackson Pollock is to . . ..

"Beat me with your rhythm stick, das ist gut . . .."

Grin

[John_4185]

Aw, I really liked what jj wrote.

You are going to be up day and night killing his benign posts.

Gregor the Roach