Inspiration

[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)