Some do say that limitations are needed for creativity

[Ko.Fe.]

Do you crop your film and/or digital images, or do you always print/display full frame?

I only crop it for 8x10 prints sometimes if I want more image and less borders. And I do crop with my legs during image taking.
Garry Winogrand used mostly 28mm lens and he was teaching his student to crop not. Crop is the crap, IMO.

 

[eddie]

The exercise of restricting yourself to a single lens is one that you can learn things from - about how you see, and how you can adjust to obtain the photographs you want.
Any time you learn things, you enhance creativity.

+1. Limited tools force problem solving, which is a form of creativity.

 

[michr]

I'm guessing you didn't feel more creative doing so either.

I probably did the first few times until I realized that's what everyone does in a pinch. My point isn't to argue against the idea that using a single lens can be a good creative exercise and force one to rethink how they compose photographs versus zooming immediately to their familiar defaults. (edit: I've actually employed that technique as a creative exercise, but I'm glad I'm not stuck with only one lens.) If you make an interesting photo in spite of limitations, rather than as a direct consequence, because of (i.e. being forced into thinking creatively), then what you've made is a novelty, like a mona lisa from pencil erasers. It's only interesting if you know the story behind it, how it was made with the limitations, and doesn't stand alone. If I'd made a sketch of the scene, taken a dozen wide-angle photos of wind turbines, electrical towers, and plowed fields, from various angles, processed the sky to look orange to emulate a sunset, and stitched it all together in the style of David Hockey to replicate the original scene, then that certainly would be creative. But since I just came up with that off-the-cuff, is it really creative?

 

[removed account4]

hi michr

sorry to snip snip snip but


"snip snip snip"

If you take it too far, you end up in happy accident territory, where the best you can hope for is a lucky shot. Sometimes the best tool for the job really is the conventional one.

sometimes happy accidents lead to a new and different way of thinking and working where it is no longer an accident because you are able to repeat it at will
and it becomes the "convention" you start using. that is how tools, and techniques are improved and invented. i mean if people didn't re-explore and constrain and create
we'd never have photography to begin with. herschel would have never discovered thiosulfate, and
his dad never would have discovered uranus
and fox talbot / niépce wouldn't have invented / discovered &c photography

But since I just came up with that off-the-cuff, is it really creative?

why isn't coming up with a solution to a problem while standing on one's feet creative ?

 

[eddie]

sometimes happy accidents lead to a new and different way of thinking and working where it is no longer an accident because you are able to repeat it at will
and it becomes the "convention" you start using. that is how tools, and techniques are improved and invented.

Most of the work I've been doing for close to the last 10 years are the results of "happy accidents", and being open to where they led. It started with being given a half-frame camera, at a time I was only shooting 4x5. The camera (Olympus Pen-EE) was sitting on my desk, and I had no intention of using it. One day I found an old box of 4x5 Plus-X in the back of a closet. Long out of date, I tossed it on the desk, with no plans to use it. Fortunately, both the camera and film were in my sight at the same time. I started to wonder what I could do to combine the two. I decided to expose/develop the sheets, so I could scrape off part of the emulsion and laminate the smaller negatives onto it. I envisioned a "faux" platinum look. It worked out pretty well, and I began to do it with larger than half-frame negatives (my first Gallery uploads were from this time).

These early attempts led to the second "happy accident". One of the issues I had with chiseling part of the emulsion off was that the base would scratch easily. I ended up tossing a lot of the sheets away. One day, I found a ruined sheet, but took a closer look at it. It occurred to me that it was kind of interesting on its own. I printed it, and painted it. I then saw the possibilities in making photographs without a camera or lens (cliché verre). I started making them, experimenting with different ways to scratch the negative. Examining the results of those cliché verres, it became apparent that I could create designed pieces, with a little forethought. This realization led to the Cityscape series.

Right now, one of my projects has been to incorporate actual negatives into the Cityscapes. It's been frustrating, and I haven't come up with any I'm completely happy with, but I'll get there eventually. If not, I've no doubt that the attempts will take me somewhere new, which is just as good.

Creativity is all about letting your mind wander, without a preconceived notion of where it must go.

 

[blockend]

If you are aiming for a consistent look, using one focal length is definitely helpful.

 

[jamesaz]

At this point in my life, I carry a Fujica with a little zoom lens because it doesn't weigh very much. (If i have a concept in mind I also have a set of L lenses for eos and a 4x5 kit.) That said, creativity seems, to me at least, a set of skills that can be learned. They must be practiced for one to become proficient however and limiting tool choice is one way to do that.

 

[TheGreatGasMaskMan]

I don't know, I feel like knowing three or four lenses can not be problematic or stressful, so long as you can easily carry them and change them out.