Simply Thinking...

During one of my recent web dalliances to read more about how photographers, or humans in general, are creative, I found a 2004 paper published in the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review called, The Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity by Arne Dietrich, who is at the American University of Beirut, in Lebanon. He’s actually a very funny Ph.D. specializing in the neurobiology of creativity who writes about himself in self-deprecating fashion. His papers are however quite serious and he is well respected.

As it opens, he writes that creativity includes two significant characteristics: The production of work that is “original and unexpected” and “useful.” As a photographer, I understand original and unexpected, but useful? I’m not to sure how useful photographs are versus, let’s say, an artificial heart valve in the shape of a pretzel.

He goes on to say that creativity requires the ability to maintain a decent attention span (that made me nervous). If our brain can store what we’re thinking long enough so that a creative solution – those original and unexpected and useful thoughts that solve the problem at hand – can evolve, primarily in our prefrontal cortex, we have the ability to be highly creative.

Now, what I was going to say?

Oh, yes. I love his description of creative thinking – “novelty production.” That sounds like someone who invents cheap ten cent toys you might find in Chinatown, or some very clever photographers.

Anyway, he continues to write that research studies show “creativity goes beyond the rational” and there is a link between creativity and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He references that with a half dozen studies but then in his next sentence, counters that with other studies that demonstrate, “creative work can also be the result of laborious trial and error.”

Now, that sounds like photography.

Wrapped Up © D.A.Wagner

Photography is a very physical business: the act of shooting can involve a lot of physical activity, as well as setting up and striking sets, carrying cameras, lights and grip equipment, climbing ladders, loading trucks, and working with Photoshop (okay, maybe that’s going too far). Is that a fitness regimen, manual labor or self-flagellation?

According to John Medina in Brain Rules, our ancestors walked about 12 miles a day in the search for food, water and safety – and that developed “Olympic-caliber bodies” that supported that wet stuff between our ears (you know, our brains – duh). We learned while we were on the move.

Medina is convinced that we humans need a comeback and exercise is as close to a “magic bullet” that exists, as it has a big payback in intellectual and health rewards, keeping us out of the doctor’s office and increasing our cognitive skills.

Does that mean that photographers are smarter and healthier than our sedentary counterparts? A 1988 News Photographer Magazine survey of 2000 photojournalists (hey, that’s the most recent info I could find) showed that health-wise, even though we smoked less (probably didn’t have the time to pick up the habit), we had more dry skin, eye, ear, throat and sinus problems and miscarriages than the general public, most likely from darkroom chemistry – something most of us have left behind for digital processing. However, back pain was the most common ailment reported (see my post on back pain), which is no surprise considering how physical our jobs can be.

As for smarter–I didn’t find anything on this one. So to give photographers the benefit of the doubt, I’ll say yes, we’re smarter. I’m saying that based on the fact that so many of us are entrepreneurs and inventors. And since we have to think on our feet, as our ancestors did–often in the presence of an audience (clients versus saber-tooth tigers)—we’re great at creative problem-solving.

There appears to be very little research and even fewer hard facts on how smart or healthy we are, but in my own conclusion, yes, we are a smart, healthy bunch – even if we are stressed out.

Anthropomorphic Celeriac

I don’t do anything, really. I don’t. I go to the market. I see something interesting. I shoot it. I eat it (this week it was in my salads). I rarely see the “anthro” part until after I’ve finished shooting and have time to review the captures. It’s the limbo of the background isolating the food. We get to study it with no distractions and that’s when it takes on a life of its own.

So why do we see it this way? I suspect that this is just the human brain still relating to the world it lives in the same way it did 50,000 years ago. As early modern humans evolved and needed to explain the world around them and, while in the process of inventing reasons for why things happen like day and night or lightning, did they also look at their relationship with food and give human attributes to those things that abstractly had hair, eyes, hands, etc., as they did with clouds? I think so (but I haven’t done my research here). Somehow this must be embedded in our genes just like smiling.

Production Photo from Scissor Birds Portfolio Shot

The world of psychology was knocked upside down when, in 1979, Andy Meltzoff, tried something that had never been done: he stuck his tongue out at a 42 minute old baby. The baby, being a newborn, had no idea what a tongue was but somehow, through some deep inherited characteristic, she stuck her tongue out at Meltzoff in reply. (And where was it that I heard that newborn babies cannot see much?). According to developmental molecular biologist John Medina, in his book, “Brain Rules,” curiosity is one of the 12 principles he believes are necessary for surviving and thriving. Exploration is how how we learn to be creative. We do it by mimicking and testing the world around us. Monkey see, monkey do. And we do it literally from birth.

Little kids constantly test objects and boundaries to see what happens. Drop a cup of milk, throw a rock at a window, walk into a mud puddle when we’re told not to. It’s the way we learn. As we mature, we continue this process by taking on challenges, even risking life and limb, just to see what we can do or what will happen. In this particular case, it just comes down to soap and scissors.

During the early process of creating a portfolio of new work, I bought ten pounds of soap from Lush and some translucent Chinese takeout boxes, but this concept became something else when a half dozen hand-made scissors I bought the same day came into play. The soap was simply going to be an arrangement of pretty colors in the boxes but it didn’t work out and, in the end, we dropped the boxes. The images were not anything worth writing home about. Pedestrian at best.

Lush Soap arrangement

During the shoot, my 18 year old daughter, who assists me when home from college, had thrown the scissors into the takeout containers and held them in front of the light table we were working on. We both thought that scissors as birds was the right concept but a nest didn’t appear until she brought the box to the light table. Like John Medina’s two year son (see the John Medina blog link above), my 18 year old daughter delighted in her find, as did I. The shot came together quickly with a loose piece of twine I pulled from a drawer and frayed the edges of a bit. The end result was a remarkable, clever image that we had not planned on. Like music, two minds, working in concert – one song.

Scissorbirds

It’s no wonder, when we add art directors, stylists, retouchers, and editors to the creative mix our work becomes more than sum of its parts.

Creativity is an exploration that happens within us. Creativity shared is exponentially more rewarding and exciting.

Grilled Steak on Stakes

Addendum – October 27, 2009 – Calumet Photo selected this image as a Photo of the Week. Nice start.

I built a patio over the summer with Vicki. With the help of Tim and a neighborhood kid, we moved the six thousand pounds of sand, gravel and pavers by hand that had been dropped on the front sidewalk by the delivery guys, to the garden about 50 feet away. Over the next 4 weeks the two of us tilled, excavated, leveled, filled the hole with gravel and sand and laid stones until we had a lovely, small patio in the middle of our (Vicki’s really) garden. No war stories. No injuries. A perfect execution by a couple of DIYers.

What’s this got to do with the photo?

It’s the nails, or stakes as they call ‘em, that were used to hold the stones in place. They’re huge. They’re more than twelve inches long and a quarter inch thick with a rough, galvanized finish on them and every time I drove a stake into the ground, they grew more beautiful and interesting. When we completed the project, I went out and purchased a dozen of the stakes and they sat in a red bucket on the floor of the hallway for weeks until the idea came: steaks on stakes. I yanked apart the palettes the pavers came on and let the large, four inch, wood blocks sit in the weather for a month. Now I had the stakes, the wood for a fire and an idea. The idea progressed along, during the move and while making phone calls and sending mailers, until it came to fruition last Thursday, when it all ended up in front of the camera. It came together quickly; it’s what happens when my neurotransmitters slam those molecules into their receptor sites and then I spend a few nights sleeping on the idea. My axons and dendrites get all excited, and then with a steak from Pedro the butcher (with the patience of a saint) at Los Paisanos around the corner, it all began.

Wood. Stakes. Steak. Fire. Boy, that was fun.

I have so much of my new work on white, it’s time to start a black series. This is number one.

The Crowd

Seth Godin wrote a very short blog entry, On the Road to Mediocrity. The basic point is, “The only way to get mediocre is one step at a time.” Don’t settle. Simply a brilliant insight. Well worth reading.

Ladybug dripping from espresso machine

So, here I am, launching a new portfolio of work feeling as excited and motivated as one can be, even in the midst of all this economic disaster. Photography consultant, Selina Maitreya, has guided and groomed me over the past year for this event. We’ve looked at the vision, voice, and process of my work and clearly identified them, and then I set about the journey of reinventing myself one step at a time. At times I felt a bit disoriented and wanted to take the easy path, returning to old habits. Gradually I got my orientation and the vision emerged from some undefined region of my brain. As it turns out, contrary to popular belief, John Medina’s research shows that some parts of our adult brains stay as malleable as a baby’s. Lucky me.

Selina and John have both proven that, if we choose, we can create new visions and new ideas if we put our minds to it.

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