Brewing Images for Coffee

This shoot is from Landscape of Emotions Workshop by Manny Librodo in Polomolok.  Workshop was two days with three different sets.  The pool sequence is part two of the first set we did where Kharu was wearing fresh make up and a cream ball gown.

I’m not very happy with my takes in the pool. I’m still finding ways to improve it and so far, I’ve hit a blank wall.  So please take a look at my photo and suggest what is lacking why the picture doesn’t quite look interesting (?) a little help please.  I find it a little too cluttered or maybe it’s too white?  My favorite set is the colorful one.

The Idea Quota Exercise is a challenge for you to work on and achieve. Be specific in what your goals are and the timeline you have to follow. If you are a writer and is planning to write a book (or not), set a quota of say, three chapters a week. If you are a photographer, aim for a shoot a week. If you are a travel junkie, aim to travel twelve times a year. If you do pottery, set a goal of producing pottery every two months. If you are a singer, make sure you sing at least three to four times a week. If you wish to be a blogger, you blog at least every other day.

If I tell you there are fifty words here, you will find it. And maybe more.

It’s like setting up a pattern for yourself to follow….and for others to familiarize you with.  When you say you’re a professor, people will assume you are teaching.  If you say you are a photographer, they will ask how long have you been taking photos and how often.  A regular pattern of you doing what you are supposed to be doing also builds confidence and credibility <— but that’s another topic to tackle.

Now, where was I?

One idea, no matter how silly, will give birth to other ideas and so on and so forth.  This exercise of setting an idea quota is a practice to stretch your mind.  It’s like a word game. You are told that in the puzzle there are fifty words to find, your mind will look for it until it’s found.  The mind has been told of a specific goal and it will work to achieve that goal.  If you have set your mind to become a major loser by telling it that it will fail in everything it will do…most likely, it will fail because that’s what it is aiming at.  That’s the goal you directed it to.  That’s why it is necessary to identify your creative pattern first.

Set a specific quota and oblige yourself to follow it.

The first five ones will be difficult.  You may start feeling no connection to whatsoever that you are doing.  For example, you’ve decided to get a career in event organizing.  If you wish to come up with good events, will yourself to produce unique concepts of events every two weeks.  The first event that comes to mind will always be the ones you have experienced and seen.  Remember them.  Jot them down.  That is the first step to becoming a good event organizer.  Then write the parties that you want to attend but have not had the opportunity.  Write why you like them.  Combine.  Write the things you appreciate in the parties you have attended and add details you wish were there to make it cooler.  Start with the music, then the ambiance, what kind of food? how about parties where you can sing on the stage if you want to?  how about parties where all who attend gets to ramp like a fashion model?  Jot them all down, no matter how far-fetched. then arrange them. and then read them again.  The more ideas you generate, the more chances you are to come up with something unique.

Thomas Edison set a quota of minor inventions every ten days and major inventions every six months.  He exercised his mind and his workers’.  He holds a record of 1,093 patents.

Forcing yourself to achieve your quota will help your mind work and will push your body to engage.  A working mind will generate ideas. The first ideas will always be about the obvious, as they are the ideas that your mind are so familiar with.  The better ideas come when you are have exhausted the obvious and you are forced to think beyond what you are familiar with.

How can you think beyond what you know?
One word.  Research.
The irony in coming up with original ideas, is that you have to be familiar with other ideas first.

You want to blog about fashion? For God’s sake, research about other fashion bloggers.  What makes them so great.  What things do they do that interest people.  What are the things they are doing that you don’t think is ok.  What type of conversation they engage their readers.  What topics do they love to talk about.  What is lacking in their articles.  What designers do they rave about?  Check their fashion sense.  Is it similar with yours?  Study them.  Imitate.  Innovate.  Add some, deduct a little, and perfect yourself by learning through their mistakes.

There are so many things to learn in the world.  And genius requires rigid learning.

Go through the motions of the role you wish to become.

Research doesn’t only mean scouring information in books and online portals.  You have to learn by acting it as well.  For example, if you want to be an artist, go through the motions of being an artist.  Take art classes and or workshops, go to galleries and look at other works of art.  Engage in artistic conversation.  Learn from the discussions of other artists.  Find a mentor to teach you what good art is.  Start to imitate until you find your signature.  Be a your own test case.  Mimic until you understand what a true artist really means.  They say artists are crazy, then act crazy for once and see if you like it.  You may not become the next Leonardo da Vinci but you will, at least, become more adequate than the one who neither has the intention nor practice. If you act like it, you will eventually become it.

There is no definite way to know how far your intentions and actions will take you.  If you come to think of it, our world offers no guarantees in our lives— only opportunities to play with.  Reaching for the sun, doesn’t necessarily mean you can steal it from the sky, but you won’t end up with mud in your hands either.

When you have influenced your mind that it is creative it will start to behave creatively.

If you expect it to produce great ideas, it will work towards it because once you have believed yourself to be creative, that you are someone who can do better than what you are doing in the present, you will begin to see the value in your ideas.  Eventually, as you learn more everyday, you will develop the persistence to implement them.

So get busy.

What’s the difference between creative people and not? Self-perception.
Creative people think they are creative and non-creative people think creativity is beyond them.

When you see yourself as a source that has no creativity in the bone, you organize yourself in a way where you personally discount any creative opportunities—just by dismissing the possibilities that you may come up with something creative today.

So how do you see yourself?
Below are three slates.  One has a squiggle, one is blank, and one has a dot.  Which one are you?

Most people would choose the squiggle.  Some the Blank sheet.Few would choose the one with a dot in the center.

When I did this test, I chose the squiggle.  I was thinking, I know what I want and when I want it badly, I’d do it.  I choose things and I feel no remorse if I drop them if it doesn’t feel right or good anymore. If I see a challenge worth pursuing, I’d have no difficulty going after it.  I put my energy in things I am interested in and so far, I am in where I want to be…well, almost.  So many things I want to do…maybe that’s why I’m confused? maybe that’s why….ahh most people would say, incomprehensible….
I don’t do only one thing.
I change my mind often. hmpf! The squiggle then!

Most of us feel incoherence and, at some point, we feel empty, that’s why most would choose the first slate (and sometimes the second one).  Few people would choose the dot, when, amongst the three, it is the most centered and solid.  I feel centered.  I feel solid.  I know why I do things.  I know why I experiment.  I chose it, remember?  I know my reasons for doing it.  I am stable, FYI! Then why did I not choose the dot?

Why so few chooses the dot?

Majority of us want to be centered and solid and represent ourselves as the one with the most potential.  In some way, my sense of self made me feel unworthy to choose the dot.  Some people say I’m not focused, that I get distracted, and those things that they say somewhat limited me.  Sense of modesty appealed to me to choose the squiggle.  I rationalized myself to select the squiggle–eventually thinking I may be unworthy to be the centered dot.

My Creativity Pattern has a lot to do with how I’ve been taught as well.  My background, education, even friends affects my creativity pattern.  Remember the saying,”tell me your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are”?— it is, in one way or another, true.  If you hang out with a certain group, you end up doing what they do, their thoughts will have an influence over yours, and their reality, having come in contact with them, will eventually have an effect on you.  You either become a shadow of everyone else in the group, or the group can heighten your clamor to be a unique individual.  Either way, they become part of your process.

My friend told me that I get distracted with the next shiny thing easily.  But I find it funny.  My system may seem to be a mess to him but it is my organized system.  He may not understand it, but I do.  And that’s what matters.  I have proven that I can generate ideas that he, in his rigid boxed world, cannot.  And between the two of us, I’m the one that’s less likely to break down.  He finds my ideas too wild for him to even consider but after hearing its tune, dances to it.  I drag him to to my temperamental life with activities I find important that he finds so silly.

He overlooked the fact that my choices are not random.  They are interconnected.  Just because he doesn’t understand it, doesn’t mean I don’t.  But he became my “check-and-balance” partner.  He checks up on me– if I’m being too crazy, asks me questions about myself…and I end up checking myself as well.  It’s during these times that I reassess the direction of the things I’m doing to see if I am still on the track that I wanted to be.

What does it have to do with being creative? A lot.

The contents of your life aren’t contained anywhere but is only revealed through your dynamic interaction with whoever and whatever that comes across your path.  A positive self-image creates a pattern that is self-maintaining and creative.

So what is being creative?  it’s the ability to cultivate an attitude towards life, interpreting, maximizing, and creating something out of your experiences that creates value for yourself and others that allows you to move forward.

Creativity is not only about producing beautiful images, drawings, and any other artsy craft.  Creativity is producing ideas at will, finding solutions to complex problems, improving at work, modifying thoughts and producing powerful processes.

Creative thinking is seeing problems as opportunities to improve.

Creative thinking is looking at your limited resources as an opening to manipulate, re-arrange, and develop innovative ideas possible.

And creative thinking renders a creative experience.

So I took the test again and chose the third slate.
I deserve to be that dot in the middle.  I am what I make of myself and not what people think I should be.  I am an active subject capable of choices.  I may be weird to you but I am self-creating.  And I will not be one of those people who are alive, but in comparison, lifeless.

Ok, now it’s your turn.

Camera Club of Davao recently organized a workshop by Lito Sy in Gap Farm last Feb 5, 2010 where more than twenty photographers, including myself, were invited to attend.  In this workshop, we were taught of the basic behavior and characteristics of light and how to control it in when doing a portraiture.

What’s the difference between a fashion shoot and portraiture? According to Lito Sy, Fashion uses hard light while portraiture uses soft light. Classic poses are recommended in the latter while fashion make use of poses that is not necessarily what you would call natural.

Light, he shared, is what makes our photography.  Our photos are captured light.

Your Light meter is your window to understanding how much light reaches your camera.  The number represents full stop, and the dots are half stops.  Ideally you would want the meter to be in the middle, it means it is either underexposed or overexposed.  But there are also times when you have to go over one or under one.  In portraiture, when your subject is pale skinned, you have to go over one, and under one if the subject has a darker skin tone.  There are also times when the meter is confused and you have to deliberately go over or underexpose.

Liz Masoner gives us an example of times to do that.