Expand Your Thinking

[by Sean Kernan]

The reasons to do it are obvious. The best way expand your thinking is to just do something. I suggest going to Paris.

Not that you’ll think more there. You might even think less, but your thoughts will all be new, fresh. With the micro-gravities (shopping, picking up the cleaning, all that stuff) removed from your life there’ll be room for a whole new set of experiences. Give your mind a little time and it will be thrilled to spend hours forming your new thoughts into a new you. Call it Traveler’s Rapture.

Can’t swing Paris this year? So take the afternoon and head for some place half an hour beyond your usual circuit. Park your car, leave the camera in the trunk (this is important), and start walking. Walk until you’re bored. Slow down. Sit. Listen to sounds. Make up stories about things you see. Use your imagination. Don’t go home for dinner. Stay until dark.

What do you remember in life? All those times when everything went just as planned? Of course not. So take this little trip right now and you can have an afternoon that you’ll remember all your life. And when you come home, you won’t be quite the same person that left.

Liber Liberum Aperit (one book opens another)

[by Sean Kernan]

I’ve been riding a long slow curve from the activity of making photographs through the question of why I pursue it so hard, visiting the question of how we create, and winding up (for now) at the question of why we create in life-size our versions of how everything should be, using photos, movies, novels, art of all kinds, and also our life stories and beliefs.

So my reading list includes:
First, The Making of a Midsummer Night’s Dream, a diary of the rehearsal of the landmark Peter Brook production of Shakespeare’s play. The rehearsal process was a culmination of many inventions in the way theater discovered a play and what was in it, and people who saw the play say it changed their lives. It certainly changed the way theater was done. But the fascinating thing to me was that whole rehearsal was extremely uncomfortable for those involved. No one really had any sense of the scope of what they were doing or how it would influence things going forward. The experience was sometimes exhilarating and more often frightening at the time, and often seemed doomed…until the play opened and the amazed responses began to come in. I usually feel insecure in the middle of projects too, so this book reminds me that that is what I’m supposed to feel if things are going as they should.

Also, Laurie Robertson-Lorant‘s biography, Herman Melville, whose a vision so great and so far advanced, and his insistence on it so complete, that he gradually cut himself off from those around him. Of course, he didn’t know he was writing the Great American Monumental Novel, and that might not have been a compensation? Did he even have a choice?

And Son of the Morning Star, Evan Connell’s reading of the national psyche’s that led up to Custer’s demise and the exploitive mythmaking that followed. I read it as another kind of insistence, that of a young nation forming its identity by pursuing a belief in its own “manifest destiny” and remaining blind to the consequences on others and on itself. (This is something Melville was particular critical of, as he witnessed missionaries and diplomats taking it on themselves to “civilize” the cultures of the Pacific.)

The thread that I have followed through all of these is that there is often—or always—something behind what we’re aware of that is bigger than anything we have in mind, that leads to a much fuller outcome. It can be for good or ill, but it is there. Can a wider awareness harness it? That’s the next question, isn’t it? Anyone know any good books on the topic?

But I have all of Stieg Larsson series in front of me too. Maybe I’ll run a little sidetrack into that next, lest things get too serious. On the other hand, knowing new stuff is fun too.

Volunteer

[by Sean Kernan]

If you’re not busy enough with work and also too busy trying to find some, try this: volunteer. Take some of that time and give it away.

Be a Big Brother or Sister, coach a kid’s team, mentor a child. take your charming dog to a nursing home every week. There are so many people in this world who need help, and it shouldn’t be hard to reach out and find a few of them. It’s probably best to do something that involves real human connection, though working at some kind of wider-ranging effort like fundraising would be fine too.

When I’m busy at a job I feel energized, but there’s often a little ambiguity in the mix, and I find myself asking if the world needs me to urge it buy another thing. But I know that the volunteering I do is unambiguously right and good. And having one clearly good thing in my life seems to re-balance everything else.

In his book, The Gift, Lewis Hyde talks about the huge importance of the things we pass around our society as gifts with no compensation. We can’t sell love or hope or compassion or so many of the other things that make us human. But giving them away brings enormous returns.

TEGWAR anyone?

[by Sean Kernan]

Remember this game? It stands for The Exciting Game Without Any Rules, and it’s a card game that is played by a number of sharps and one patsy.

The way it works is that a few basic poker-like rules are put out and the game starts. At some point the patsy thinks he has won a hand. But then it is explained to him that there is actually an exception to the rule by which he thinks he won.

So if he comes up with two pair and goes to claim the pot, it is pointed out that if three of the cards are black and one is red, then the two-colored pair doesn’t count and it also negates the other pair. That kind of thing.

The fun—if you think that tormenting innocents is fun—lies in the making up of increasingly baroque rules and watching the growing confusion of the patsy player. The most successful outcome is when the patsy never gets what is happening. The worst would be if they did get it and went postal.

You get the idea, Now tell me, doesn’t this feel like some of the projects we do for clients? I’ve certainly had jobs in which I feel I’m being gamed in this way. But when it happens, none of the other players are actually in on it. In fact, they are as confused as I am but they don’t want to admit it.

So it becomes a special skill to get people to be definitive, to fix their positions—for them as well as for you—and to collate all the different and often conflicting agendas and put something out there that everyone can sign off on.

It can feel like you’re in a special corner of hell when this happens, but really it is part of the job. And by being the one with feet on the ground, you serve your clients by just getting them clear enough to get work done. You can’t bill for it, but the clarity you bring to a situation can be one of the reasons that people come back to you.

Robert Frank Tweeting?

[by Sean Kernan]

Living in this blizzard of Tweets, I have to remind myself that doing really creative work requires a certain amount of silence, even boredom. There has to be space in which things can occur, and if you are constantly talking about what you are doing, you can’t really listen, at least not as much as you need to do deep work.  (Which is maybe why my earliest work was so lose and prolific. After all no one was chasing me to do other projects then. They didn’t know I was alive. Which was more desirable than I knew at the time.)

The first question that seems to pop up around about any creative idea seems to be, How can I support/sell this? It’s a fair question, but perhaps it shouldn’t be the first question.

Although it seems a bit cloudy just now, photography is an amazing mirror, and it can reflect the most subtle and broad phenomena. It still amazes me when a single still image, resonates it a way that takes one into other lives, other worlds, atmospheres, things that can’t be said any other way. Take a look at Roy deCarava’s Hallway. Try to say something about it. The closest I got was when I tried to write a poem about it, but believe me it wasn’t as powerful as the picture. It is a kind of photograph that I think can you can only get to by first being quiet. That’s how it works on the viewer too.

There’s a time to show, to promote, to “monetize”, but it’s not all the time, and it’s not the creative time.
Think of that old Zen koan. It may be that if a tree falls in the forest it makes no sound, but the tree sure knows things have changed.

Mozart in the Barn

[by Sean Kernan]

I’m just back from doing a creativity seminar for photographers and art directors at General Mills. In gathering my thoughts for it, I considered how the kind of eye-opening and thought-provoking work I do with people might really be justified in business terms. Of course, I think the value is obvious, and so did the folks at General Mills, since I was going at their initiative. But I’m sure it would be tough arguing the point to the accounting side at a lot of companies, particularly in a downturn.

The day before the workshop I stopped in at the Minneapolis Art Institute and spent a few hours among their fantastic collections. And as I was leaving I noticed the donor list by the entrance. There at the top—General Mills.

I doubt that such philanthropy really generates enough revenue there in the company’s home town to cover the donation, and nothing at all outside of town. But there it was. Set against ROI is this idea that there are returns that can’t be measured in dollars, but that effect the community, which comes back to effect the donor. It’s a circle. (Or maybe it’s fractal, I’m not sure.)

I wanted to express this for my workshop wrap-up, but if you can’t measure it, it is also hard to express it in words. Then it came to me!

“Happy cows give more milk.”

It was a good laugh line for our group, but it is also a clear and quick analogy. The more rounded and balanced the rest of our life is, the more that we will be present and focused at work. Conversely, a whacked-out life will mess things up on the job.

It all weaves into a circle. True in the corporate setting, true for free-lancers as well. It adds up to a good argument for consciously making our lives rounder, more balanced. And who is that up to? Guess.

What If ?

[by Sean Kernan]

In your wildest dreams, what would you do, you stopped take pictures, starting today,?
What would you do your thoughts didn’t have to express as photos, or even be visible?
What if they could be verbal or sonic, or could just streak through consciousness like shooting stars, like those peak experiences we’ve all had that have nothing to do with photography?
What would you do if no one else could see what it was you were doing or knew what you were thinking?
If it didn’t have to “come out?”
If you could sing images, or just make words or sounds or colors?
If it didn’t have to somehow make money?
Or add to some definition of yourself?
What if you just got off alone and thought of a list of things to do that would knock you out, surprise you, even scare you a bit?
What if you somehow isolated yourself and did that, for a week or two, or however it took to interrupt your habits of thinking, seeing, and doing.
Then if you even took pictures…what might they look like?

The Executive

[by Sean Kernan]

Someone once said that executive portraiture is basically a still life problem. Still, crabby execs do things like turning up for their portraits early while you’re still setting up and insisting that you shoot right away because they have a meeting. On one annual report shoot an angry VP of Something-Or-Other walked into the setup and said, “I don’t have time for this crap!” I replied that I understood completely, but that it was his company’s project, not mine, and could he tell the chairman that he was too busy to do it. Otherwise I would tell him if he didn’t have time. He relented, and I got my picture of my guy…a little graceless and angry, but there it was.

Most people are not like that. What they are is a bit afraid, unsure of what they are supposed to look like. The best approach is to behave as an equal, which you are, of course, and let them know that they are supposed to look like who they are.

You can’t think of everything that might dislocate your location plans, but then preplanning is not the solution to the more baroque problems that come up. Best to just be present and let solutions arise from the situation.

Mindmovies

[By Sean Kernan]

When I was 23 I did a film script for Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales. It was easy. I just sat down with the words, and watched the visuals that unreeled in my mind. Then I wrote them down. (Getting it produced was another matter, and ultimately I did not, but I didn’t care.)

Recently I started working with multimedia and video. The piece was about African boxers, and it came out OK. At least, people said they liked it.

Then I showed it to a friend who is an Academy Award winning producer and director. Different response. He asked me things like, “What did you feel in the middle of this work? These people? How did you feel when you were with them?” (In fact it had been a bit scary, I said.) “That’s interesting. Where is that in your video?”

This response was much better than praise. So now I’m re-cutting it. In this new form it is a bit jumpy, kind of like I was when I did the work.

For the first version I had let myself be driven by my idea of what a video should look like, which was kind of fluid and bland. (Maybe I’ve been working in advertising too long.) And the software took me to that very easily.

Now I have begun a new project, and this time I’ve started by playing it out in my mind’s eye, working with what was there rather than smoothing it into something that looks like a well-made video.

I’m reminded that, in spite of what my second grade teacher thought, gazing into space is a great way to start creative projects.

The Best Starting Point for Your Website

I decided to do my first website partly because my studio manager at the time was getting a bit bored, and I thought doing it might engage him. So I said, “Let’s do a website.” He said, “Great! …What’s a website?” And I said, “I don’t know.”

Back then no one really knew. There was no way everyone did it, because pretty much no one had done it. So we had to think about what we wanted this thing to look like and  say.  We were forced to start with the simple question, What do we want this to do?

Well, I wanted it to show the kind of work I that loved doing, the kind that drew me into photography in the first place, in the hope that someone would pay me to do it.

So we took photos and laid them all around and made piles and more piles. There was a clear connection between jobs and personal work, and I want to make that point. So we combined all the little piles  into two big ones, called Work and Soul. And voila! We had our structure for the site…which as it happened was a circle, not a list.

Surfing thus on our ignorance, we made a perfect site for an artistically inclined photographer who also worked for clients. Which was exactly what I was.

The idea of starting with who we were worked. Now there’s a lot more to know about making a site, but looking at who you are, not what you want to appear to be, is still the best starting point.

This Week We Focus on Creativity

Stop me if you have heard this before.

When I write  about photographing I sometimes feel that I’m repeating the same thing over in slightly different ways.

But then maybe there’s only one thing to say. And it’s something along the lines of, “Everything is everything.” So after writing my last post (Taking Pictures for No Reason At All) I began thinking that the pictures that drew me into photographing—other people’s, not mine—were mostly freestanding images of great power. They were not usually part of a series or a story, and those that were really stepped out of the line and stood there alone. In other words, they did their own heavy lifting.

Specifically, I’m thinking of a Roy Decarava photo of an empty hallway, of a Robert Frank photo of a pedestrian walking past a building with a neon arrow on it (in Butte, I think), of a Duane Michals picture of a Russian acrobat. Emmet Gowin said that an Ansel Adams photo of new grass against a charred trunk really moved him in the same way.

I think of these photos as moments of purity, perhaps best understood in musical terms. What I mean is that we are all familiar with musical phrases, songs, whole pieces that don’t “mean” anything or narrate anything or convey a preselected thought or emotion. Instead they contain their effect without no outside reference necessary. We expect that of music.

On the other hand, we often think of photographs as being “pictures of things.” So we look for interesting subjects. I’ve done my share of that, but what really drew me on when I first started were those photos I took that just were. I was not chasing a job (I had one) and  I wasn’t trying to say something. I just wanted to take a picture that somehow held it’s own meaning, like a kind of pure presence. I hoped that with luck someone else might feel the same thing when they saw it. But that wasn’t what drove me. What I wanted was to be expanded by something I’d done myself.

I’ve spent years making a living, satisfying clients, trying to explore the world of things and ideas, and working to construct this being called Seankernan. But still the only thing that really excites me is when one of those ineffable pictures turns up in my take.  THAT’S what the work is. And that’s what I still want from photography. Not a job, a profession, not a show or a publication. I want to wake myself up.

Taking Pictures for No Reason at All

That’s how I started in photography. I think it’s how we all start. There’s no client, no place what we do has to fit in. If we have a project at all, it is vague, and if in the course of things a strong picture emerges that doesn’t seem to fit…we changed the project!

But when we develop as professionals we develop all kinds of parameters and strictures, some very insidious. Like, can I use a picture to  get work? Does it look like what others are doing, like want clients want? How can I monetize it?

They are all fair questions. But there are no good answers to them. So I think that it is really important that from time to time we should set them aside and walk out the door with the intention to take pictures that specifically don’t fit..

We’ve all had that moment of working through a bunch of files and coming across a picture that just stops us cold. It looks as though someone else took it, and we are just struck into silence. In fact, that “someone else” is us,  a version of us that is a better photographer than we are. And we really need to track that person down and get to know them. They are out on the front edge of our work, and they are what we can become.

So if you’re a successful food or wedding or portrait photographer, why is it important to do this kind of thing? Look, great commercial work has a sense of surprise, of life leaking in at the edges, and people, our clients and their clients, respond to that sense of aliveness. If you don’t believe me, go visit some photographer’s sites. Lots of people put their own work apart from whet they do for clients, so look for a “personal work” section. You’ll tend to find that the personal work is so much more alive and invigorating than the client work. It is the work that got them started, keeps them going, the work they believe in.

And if we really attend to that part of us that looks for the unsought juxtaposition, the moment in which something unexpected manifests for a millisecond, it will influence our work for clients. Our commercial work will look more alive and compelling. Of course, there’s a good chance they may not choose to use it, but that’s never a reason not to do it. The best work never comes from filling an assignment, it comes from exceeding it.

So we need to spend real time taking pictures that look nothing like our work, that don’t look like anything we’ve ever seen. It is what made us.