Competency vs. Creativity

[matthew blais]

there's also a world of difference between creative and novel (as in novelty) although many fail to see the distinction

Whose world?

A person who creates something novel is..well, creative.
I think they are intertwined and yet not the same.

A person who is creative can be competent, at other times, not.
A competent person can be creative at times, perhaps novel, perhaps just competent.

Seeing a well composed, balanced image in the landscape or urbanscape or still life can be attributed to one's competency in that arena. In that sense he is creating within his competency level. Likely not very novel or creative, as that is rare.

I get what you are saying Kirk, or what you implied, but also the subjective factor reels in, as many will think Adams was creative vs. just competent, as he definitely was. Adams was at least novel (again-arguable) with his Zone system as well as creative (thought/concept/writings). Weston did some creative, although by my opinion, boring nude work. It may have been novel, but novel isn't always creative or competent or good.

So, I guess I believe sometimes competency is better than creative or novel and sometimes being novel is creative but not necessarily creatively competent while at other times being competent could be creative in how one applies one's competency.




Make pictures, not love

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Oh I don't know, I find this is pretty creative

You would....a boring, talentless shot that requires and explanation....for those of us who "don't get it"...it figures..

[roteague]

there's also a world of difference between creative and novel (as in novelty) although many fail to see the distinction

I think I see what you mean. Could you elaborate what you were thinking?

[Brian K]

I think the biggest area of creativity is the creativity in the long winded explanations, and justifications of poorly composed, mundane, moodless, and downright lazy work that I see so often in galleries and museums today. There really is an Emperor's new clothes going on.

I struggle with trying to find special moments, and for the 35,000 miles I drive a year I only come across a few a year. Now maybe I'm simply not that good a photographer, or maybe special moments are rare. I see so many images in galleries that could have been taken on anyday, at anytime, anywhere and are produced with little thought to composition, light, even expressiveness and yet this genre has become the darling of the museums and galleries. All i can do is do what I do and be content with producing work that I'm happy with. But I can really understand when people unfamiliar with the art world go to a gallery or museum look at the photography and say,"What's the big deal, I could have done that?".

[Henry Ambrose]

Dang it Jorge!!

Can't you see what's going on in that picture?

They had this guy stand there and shot arrows at him until he was covered up like a pin cushion.

Damned edgy if I must say so.

[Mike Chini]

I struggle with trying to find special moments, and for the 35,000 miles I drive a year I only come across a few a year.

When Paul Strand wanted to photograph an Italian village, he spent lots of time trying to figure out which one would work best (in terms of light, aesthetics etc.). After the project was done, he'd realized that great work can be produced anywhere. This thinking eventually led him to photograph in his garden in France.

I sympathize with you but I keep telling myself, it's not the world that's the problem, it's me!

[Brian K]

Mike, it's true that great work can be produced anywhere, and the advantage of working locally is that when the conditions are great you can just run outside and shoot. But the work that I am talking about is not work in which something interesting or special or intriguing is happening. It's not work where a composition or play of light make it noteworthy, it is the celebration of the mundane, captured mundanely.

If they at least turned something mundane into something of interest that would be something, but they don't. Where is the value, where is the art in capturing a mudane thing mundanely? Couldn't anyone do that? Couldn't a machine or a chimpanzee do that?

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Dang it Jorge!!

Can't you see what's going on in that picture?

They had this guy stand there and shot arrows at him until he was covered up like a pin cushion.

Damned edgy if I must say so.

Shit, this is what I get for not reading the "explanation".....You are right , pretty edgy...

[tim atherton]

I think I see what you mean. Could you elaborate what you were thinking?

I see creativity as a more sustained sort of thing.

To mind mind novelty tends to be a bit of a one off/one liner. Sometimes a good idea, sometimes interesting, but once it's done it's done. The biggest problem being that someone who comes up with something novel then keeps trying to repeat it again and again. (Sherry Levine's ? rephotographing Walker Evans work - a fun, interesting idea the first time. But she flogged that horse until it was past dead and buried)

But then I guess there are those who actually sustain a constant level of producing something novel again and again - but each time it's a fresh idea a fresh concept a fresh vision - and entirely different from what they did before .... I guess that's a different sort of creativity - In some ways I think Sugimoto is like this - there's a rigour and depth to his creativity (along with some strong underlying themes) - but his dioramas are very different from his seascapes which are very different from his architecture etc though one has often fed into another. Very few artists seem able to sustain that kind of changing - yet remaining fresh - output - especially in photography

[Kirk Gittings]

the curious fusion of the f64 group's straight technical esthetic with the romanticism of Thomas Moran and other 19th century 'ain't nature grand' landscape painters.

Paul

In different words, but the point of my master's thesis.