What does "Let the Muses guide you" mean, and why is it relevant to LF?

[Tin Can]

The muse is life itself. Without, we are dust.

[Mark Sawyer]

I'll offer this as a paraphrase of "let the Muses guide you..."

Find something you truly care about, and try to do it justice.

[Bernice Loui]

"Follow your passions and the passions will appear in the images created by the individual with passion."


Bernice

[plaubel]

For me, "Muse" is absolutely necessary in using LF.
Basically, I need a good feeling, a willing to do and given possibilities ( a clear head, and some extra time), otherwise, there is no Muse and my pictures will become ugly.

And yes, I can give my Muse a direction, so listen to Beethoven while photographing will do :-)

If there is no Muse, I'm not able to previsualize anything.

Inspiration herself is everywhere - outside in the nature, here in this forum - but I really need my Muse...

Cheers,
Ritchie

[Regular Rod]

It's all flannel! Muses indeed! In engineering there is an old saying: "If it looks right, it most probably is right." It also applies to making photographs. If it looks right (TO YOU) then it most probably is right.

The most important thing about the rules is to ignore them. Hard to do if you've been imbued with them by education. Easy to do if you never heard of them. If you see something that pleases you and in your mind's eye looks like it will make a photograph that pleases you then that is enough. Make the photograph, getting it looking right as you do so.

RR

[Doremus Scudder]

Mythology is full of Jungian archetypes that personify aspects of our humanness that tend to defy analysis and description. The nine Muses are one of the best examples of this. In antiquity, there was a common perception that our understanding and logic was only a part of or being, and not necessarily the majority of it. Gods, Fates, Oracles and Muses represented those other parts of our being, our subconscious thought-processes and involuntary hard-wired responses that form such a large and important part of how we interact with the world and each other.

These days, we tend to believe that our awareness is about all there is to us. The ancients knew better, and realized there were aspects of each and every human being that were, in essence, beyond their own understanding and control. Instead of denying this, or working to cognize it, they embraced it, and let themselves be directed by these subconscious impulses, accepting them as inevitable, and often, as gifts.

The Muses were specifically connected with inspiration in the arts and sciences, representing the flash of realization that comes from the blue or, if you prefer, the surfacing of subconscious constructs that the mind may have been working on in the background for a very long time.

When I say, "let the Muses guide you," I mean being open to allowing our sub- un- and super-conscious mind to participate in our creative process. That means believing that your mind is working there in the background of our awareness and can help guide us to better decisions. I think this is especially true if we have programmed our subconscious with lots of relevant and quality information (so don't stop reading those Ansel Adams books!).

In short, we need to be open to the part of us that is beyond our understanding and awareness and have the confidence that, once we've prepared our subconscious mind, it will solve problems and suggest innovations on its own (and in its own time) that our conscious minds simply cannot.

So, "Let the Muses guide you."

Best,

Doremus

[jp]

Some of us have heard the deference to muse influence in person from Paul Caponigro, keeping the phrase part of lf vernacular.

[Peter Lewin]

Doremus, That was a wonderful explanation!

[Jmarmck]

A muse in music is for some an absolute necessity. Those of us who "noodle" around looking for catchy musical phrases, interesting progressions, and mood changing transitions depend upon those subconscious influences to guide us through such an infinitely variable universe filled with unrequited and often sought for possibilities.

In my LF the muse helps me connect the dots between recognition and final product. But, the muse must be taught. A muse is only as good as the tools at your disposal, and I am not taking about gear. Thus, my LF muse is not as fluid as my musical muse. My work muse is a stick in the mud.

[Old-N-Feeble]

Let the guides amuse you. The guides let you amuse them. Mm... yooz guys amuse me.