where does technique end and creativity begin ?

[Sirius Glass]

what i am gettting at is that for some people it is sheer technique...
and for some it is not.
one problem with forum threads like this is people who are technique driven
get all bent out of shape and visa versa .. if one is happy with their results, whatever works works ..
i certainly don't care if someone makes photographs without a map, or if the whole thing is an excercise of the hinge theory
but there is a point when it is subconscious and not a technique..
and that is what i was getting at .. is there a specific time or instance where this happens.

I agree that if one only uses technique and not creativity the photographs will be stiff, stifling, and boring. However if only creativity is used, many of the photographs will suffer from lack of proper exposure, focus, development, printing, ...

 

[removed account4]

However if only creativity is used, many of the photographs will suffer from lack of proper exposure, focus, development, printing

creativity might not have nothing to do with lacking proper exposure focus development or printing techniques ...
maybe for some that is what creativity is ? but for others it has nothing to do with it...
and printing poorly exposed poorly processed + focused film is the best
way to become a good printer. it teaches someone how to interpret, and print

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Creativity is the capacity to manifest new, fresh ideas in some particular form. It's mostly subjective. For example, one person may regard a cozy for a TV set to be a creative use of knitting, while another thinks it's just a stupid waste of yarn. How many times have you heard people say regarding a Jackson Pollack painting, "Any idiot could just as well splash paint on a canvas."

Techniques are methods, routines, procedures, and other formalities of execution that are mostly objective. For example, "after tightening the screw, Joe grinds the head down smooth, and then covers it with oil to prohibit rust."

It is usually regarded that techniques are learned through training and practice (duplicated, passed on) where creativity is developed from in inward source of inspiration not easily defined. The words are not mutually exclusive. Some techniques are creative because they are fresh and new ways of doing something, and some creativity can be reduced to some specific steps or documented processes.

What hasn't been mentioned is "skill" which somewhat intersects the two terms. So, it is often said that skill is required for either technique or creativity to be realized in a useful or valuable way. For example, quickly and sharply focusing a lens* is a skill. Lack of this skill can possibly degrade what was otherwise a great technique or a creative idea for a picture.

Using the three terms in a triangle, or three-legged stool concept, can be the start of discovering good photographs from average ones. i.e. lack of skill, creativity or technique, might often lead to an unexceptional photograph.

*not at intended to imply that sharp focus is a REQUIREMENT for all circumstances.

 

[pdeeh]

where does technique end and creativity begin ?

South Mimms Services

 

[DREW WILEY]

Creativity is doing the same creative thing that someone else did forty years ago, then forty years before that, like hanging a blank white canvas on a museum wall, or thumbtacking a roadkilled cat to it. It's all been done repeatedly. More often, it's doing what everyone else is doing, copycat-creativity, the latest fad, or these days the latest visual app ad nauseum. I doubt Jackson Pollock was consciously trying to be "creative". He was just being Jackson Pollock, and got to that point through personal evolution, not revolution. Although many people have aped his style, none has his genius. It shows. There is nothing random about those drips and splatters - they work together marvelously. You can't fake that. I once sometimes did forensic photography to detect art fakes. Someone brought me an alleged missing Caravaggio for the usual infrared film snooping for underpainting etc. It was a very old canvas and all the right era symbolism, brushwork, and pigments were there; but I could tell from clear across the room that it was a fake. The genius wasn't there. The forensic shots merely confirmed the rest of the story. Somebody did their homework and scraped off a previous painting from a very old canvas, but didn't scrape off enough to avoid detection. I got paid and saved the client a much larger fee from some Caravaggio expert.

 

[MattKing]

You all realize that you are arguing more about the particular words and their meaning, then about the photography.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Exactly why I wish terms like "art" and so-called "creativity" didn't even exist. These are very plastic words which can mean almost anything.

 

[Arthurwg]

How many times have you heard people say regarding a Jackson Pollack painting, "Any idiot could just as well splash paint on a canvas."

In Pollack's case I think they are correct. Vastly overrated painter who simply came up with that strategy because he could't draw. Anyway, his wife. Lee Krasner, was a better artist. and actually had the ideas that Jackson stole. Anyway, he drank too much and put his car into a tree.

 

[jamesaz]

For me, creativity is a way of life and media and technique are just a way to exercise it. I believe there is a vast amount of inate creativity in most people. They just have never learned or been given an opportunity to develop it,( or in some cases don't care to.)

 

[Berkeley Mike]

To begin with, photographers see differently than most folk. Next, the way they access that understanding is quite different, too. And finally they may produce their visions in a way that others might not have considered. In all of that there is a certain purity of thought and a subsequent agility that avoids the average.

You will hear people say "She's really creative", a reference to doing something differently and creating an event that lives on its own.

 

[chris77]

robert delpire, famous french publisher and photographer, said, in comparison to the artisan's (handcraftsman) work, the artist's photograph has the "I" in it, "...and it is so cumbersome that you cannot get around it..."
nicely said in my opinion.

 

[Berkeley Mike]

robert delpire, famous french publisher and photographer, said, in comparison to the artisan's (handcraftsman) work, the artist's photograph has the "I" in it, "...and it is so cumbersome that you cannot get around it..."
nicely said in my opinion.

Wonderful.

 

[removed account4]

In Pollack's case I think they are correct. Vastly overrated painter who simply came up with that strategy because he could't draw. Anyway, his wife. Lee Krasner, was a better artist. and actually had the ideas that Jackson stole. Anyway, he drank too much and put his car into a tree.

maybe .. but i think he used a paint very close in chemical formation to urinol,

 

[removed account4]

Exactly why I wish terms like "art" and so-called "creativity" didn't even exist. These are very plastic words which can mean almost anything.

its all about having fun so it really doesn't matter what words are made and what the "outside world" thinks..

 

[Arthurwg]

maybe .. but i think he used a paint very close in chemical formation to urinol,

He used house paint. Duco Enamel?

 

[ReginaldSMith]

Exactly why I wish terms like "art" and so-called "creativity" didn't even exist. These are very plastic words which can mean almost anything.

I don't understand your meaning. Most words are "plastic" although I wouldn't go do far as to say they can mean "almost anything." Suppose "art" and "creativity" were not words, are you implying that the underlying artifacts and capacity also wouldn't exist?

 

[ReginaldSMith]

For me, creativity is a way of life and media and technique are just a way to exercise it. I believe there is a vast amount of inate creativity in most people. They just have never learned or been given an opportunity to develop it,( or in some cases don't care to.)

I agree. However, for creativity to be manifested, it requires real actions and initiative and follow through. One has a creative idea, but in order for anyone else to appreciate it, that idea has to be turned into something, and that takes time, effort, planning and physical execution. And I think that is where people get separated - - those who DO and those who DON'T act on their ideas. Those who act, understand that there will be failures - sometimes many - but they take the risk. I often think those who don't act on ideas are just fearful of failure (and possible ridicule.)

 

[NJH]

Or they are lazy, or have other distractions and responsibilities in life or they just don't know how to realise their ideas.

 

[pdeeh]

ooh i see the modern art explainers have logged on

 

[removed account4]

composition is technique and has nothing to with creativity

i have had a day or 2 to think about this and the crow i am eating tastes delicious
composition has everything to do with creativity. where to put the box what to keep or remove
from the collage .... sorry for the detour.
but there must be some juncture where technique turns into to invisible creativity ..

 

[jtk]

To begin with, photographers see differently than most folk. Next, the way they access that understanding is quite different, too. And finally they may produce their visions in a way that others might not have considered. In all of that there is a certain purity of thought and a subsequent agility that avoids the average.

You will hear people say "She's really creative", a reference to doing something differently and creating an event that lives on its own.

Yes, seems valid. Few photographers are (or want to be thought of as) artists. Some, however, are.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Decartes said it best, "I stink, therefore I am". Truer than ever now that everybody can simply push some virtual-creativity app on a portable electronic device. But we film photographers originated everything behind this - real cobwebs and fungus in the lens elements, nice hazy moods from cleaning the lens with steel wool, silhouettes of real mosquitoes landing on the film trapped inside a bellows, wrinkles and fingerprints all over the printing paper - you name it!

 

[Sirius Glass]

In Pollack's case I think they are correct. ... Anyway, he drank too much and put his car into a tree.

Was that one of his art creations?

 

[TheRook]

Exactly why I wish terms like "art" and so-called "creativity" didn't even exist. These are very plastic words which can mean almost anything.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with those terms... as long as you are willing to accept them as loose concepts and don't attempt to quantify them. Similarly, you can't measure such things as love or beauty. Although they exist only as ideas, they do have meaning and value in communication.

 

[zanxion72]

Creativity emerges at the very edges of worrying about anything technical. This is when you start being really creative.