Competency vs. Creativity

[Struan Gray]

The musicians I know love to improvise, there's just not much of an outlet for it in the regular concert circuit. One of the attractions of the period instrument world is that musicians have more freedom from conductors, and more opportunity to interpret, even if it's only with the odd ornament.

One thing that frustrates me greatly about the photography world is its insularity. At my most cynical I think it's a sign of there being too many professional photographers: just as I think governments work better if they are not full of career politicians. Take a look at Gavin Bryars' motivation for writing a piece called "On photography":

http://www.gavinbryars.com/Pages/on_..._album_fr.html

(Paragraph four, if you like to speed-read.) By comparison, photography seems very narrow and determinist in its choice of motivations.

[Mark Sawyer]

I do suppose that too many photographers want their work to look just like Ansel Adams', just as too many guitar-players want to sound just like Carlos Santana...

Maybe we need to differentiate between photographers and artists, and between instrument-players and musicians...

(I do think that Adams' work has lost much of its original power today due to a generation of imitators, just as would happen to any musical artist who was so soundly and surgically copied by thousands, and for decades...)

Creativity, or innovation, if you prefer, can also be seen as just one more tool in the tool box. Beyond a certain flash-value in the galleries, what does it offer? It suggests nothing towards quality or content, vision or integrity. To set innovative style as a goal of its own seems little different than to set the mastering craft or capturing a beautiful image as the goal in itself...

[paulr]

I do suppose that too many photographers want their work to look just like Ansel Adams', just as too many guitar-players want to sound just like Carlos Santana...

definitely. the same conversation is probably going on over at the guitar hero message boards.

To set innovative style as a goal of its own seems little different than to set the mastering craft or capturing a beautiful image as the goal in itself...

sure, but i think a genuinely creative person is doing neither. an innovative style isn't really the goal; it's the side effect of trying to say what you uniquely have to say.

[ageorge]

Agreed. There is nothing wrong with beauty. To say that beauty is not enough is to disown huge amounts of art, from Mozart to Moran.

Fair enough...

But beauty is a pretty tired horse. There must be more to photography than beauty, no? Don't you find beauty intellectually vacant? Is it the only duty of "art" to make me "feel" good?

And yes roteague, I am poking at you to

[domenico Foschi]

Fair enough...

But beauty is a pretty tired horse. There must be more to photography than beauty, no? Don't you find beauty intellectually vacant? Is it the only duty of "art" to make me "feel" good?

And yes roteague, I am poking at you to

It all depends what is your concept of beauty.
It should actually be written Beauty.
Beauty has a Univrsal value that encompasses the trends and time, it is the equivalent of timeless Art.

What does intellect have to do with Art?
Intellect is the enemy of Art.
Oscar Wilde said: There are two ways to dislike Art: One is by disliking it, the other is by liking it with the intellect.
The artist duty is to show the world that beauty is everywhere even in the worst of things.
It is a spiritual view of the world that tells us to look beyond the conventional and discover that something that can be experienced only with the heart.

There.

[Stephen Willard]

For those of you who believe they can define creativity, innovation, and competency, I say you are fools. For those of you who dare mix politics with their images then you manufacture nothing more then propaganda. For those of you who claim to be fine-art photographers, I say you are merely a wall decorator like myself.

About the only thing one can really define is there are wall decorators who have patrons and then there are those who do not. Should some one purchase your work then the patron finds your work worthy for the price and nothing more.

If you have not sold any photographs then you need to stop complaining and get better. If you grow tired of someone's else work such as Adams or even beauty then shut up and go do something different.

Other then that, this is an interesting string.

[tim atherton]

For those of you who believe they can define creativity, innovation, and competency, I say you are fools. For those of you who dare mix politics with their images then you manufacture nothing more then propaganda. For those of you who claim to be fine-art photographers, I say you are merely a wall decorator like myself.
.

Yep that Picasso guy - never did make any good art. Just a propagandist through and through. As for Goya - what a hack.

Of course, we wouldn't want to actually make at about life would we? (and you can't get much more political at times than ideas of "beauty")

If you grow tired of someone's else work such as Adams or even beauty then shut up and go do something different.

I'm guessing you've never heard of the sublime (or Turner or Cozens or Stravinsky or Blake or Rembrandt or - oh the list goes on...)

[Mark Sawyer]

sure, but i think a genuinely creative person is doing neither. an innovative style isn't really the goal; it's the side effect of trying to say what you uniquely have to say.

I suppose it comes down to semantics and the concept of art. Does being creative/innovative in how one sees the world make one an artist? Or is it something else? Could be argued very well either way...

The odd thing about what each of us so uniquely has to say is that whatever we say, it's never what anyone else so uniquely sees in our work. I wonder how many photographers we put down as "Adams/Weston/whoever imitators" really see something uniquely different in their own work...

(Personally, I think everybody else is unique, and I'm the only one that's the same...)

[Struan Gray]

If you have not sold any photographs then you need to stop complaining and get better.

Art as grocery.

[domenico Foschi]

For those of you who believe they can define creativity, innovation, and competency, I say you are fools. For those of you who dare mix politics with their images then you manufacture nothing more then propaganda. For those of you who claim to be fine-art photographers, I say you are merely a wall decorator like myself.

About the only thing one can really define is there are wall decorators who have patrons and then there are those who do not. Should some one purchase your work then the patron finds your work worthy for the price and nothing more.

If you have not sold any photographs then you need to stop complaining and get better. If you grow tired of someone's else work such as Adams or even beauty then shut up and go do something different.

Other then that, this is an interesting string.

People should only speak for themselves without dragging others in their negativity.