Artist's Way For Photographers
View over Ilulissat and Disko Bay towards distant mountains in Greenland.
Following the artist’s way can help you live a more creative life by finding purpose and meaning through immersion.
If you’re a keen photographer the artist’s way will encourage you to pursue creative activities and build a more purpose driven, meaning rich life.
The result is that you’ll learn to be more patient of your own shortcomings and more forgiving of your failures.
Creativity should not lock you into any one formal practice. Rather it should do the following:
Encourage you to try new things
Enjoy them without prejudice or judgement
Enhance your life through the richness of the experience
For my part I enjoy all kinds of photography, but I’m particularly interested in images that explore the following:
Narrative (story telling)
Composition
Symbolism
Metaphor
This photo was made near the end of a long overnight walk, under the midnight sun, along the edge of the Ilulissat Icefjord.
I’m atop a hilltop looking down on the town of Ilulissat and across a small part of the massive Ilulissat Icefjord.
The image examines housing and, indeed, life on the edge of the wilderness in the remote Arctic.
It’s an otherworldly image that suggests an existence posed between two worlds: the idyllic and, what the artistically minded might consider, the hellish constraints of conformity.
“Art is not so much about looking. It’s about seeing.”
Your Photos Teach You How To See
To see we need to go beyond surface appearances and the recognizable so as to discover new options, possibilities or realities that lead to a deeper level of understanding beyond our normal, everyday experience.
It's that magical place between the known and the unknown, between fact and mystery.
It's the world akin to that of the alchemist and it’s a most wonderful place in which you and, by extension, your images can reside.
Mist shrouded landscape suggests the artist's way and the search for style.
The Search For Style In Photography
My own view on style is that I wouldn’t be overly considered with any need to search for it.
The search for style has become a bit of a crusade for some folks, but it’s not the Holy Grail.
I’d say it’s largely a distraction, which is why you see folks buying presets in the hope that their photos will look like those made by another photographer, often someone with a degree of celebrity in the industry.
While a preset can make sense, from a workflow point of view and also to achieve a certain look or feel in your images, spending $9:95 will not make your photos the same as someone else’s.
What’s more you’d be much better off cultivating your own creativity, rather than trying to copy someone else’s.
“The artist’s journey is a journey of self discovery”
Over time and with enough work your own photographic style will emerge.
Given that so much of what people refer to as style is concerned with how your images look, I believe it’s a secondary concern to your identity as an artist.
Stylistic concerns relate to surface impressions and to how it is that you produce the work you do.
What I’m more interested in is the true, unique and authentic nature of the artist.
This photo of a young, local Chinese tourist on Huangshan is quite unique. It’s a moment in time that few other photographers would have been able to create.
Why? Because I turned my camera in the opposite direction to where the action was. I just knew something was about to happen and I trusted my intuition.
I composed the image and waited, just for a moment, for this seemingly transient being to appear out of the mist.
One frame was all I got and all I needed. Then she was gone.
The image is unique and it came out of, what was then, 30 years of photography and a wealth of experiences, both exciting and tedious, along the way.
Self discovery and the tree of life in the Hamilton Botanical Gardens.
Self Discovery and The Tree Of Life
Ultimately the artist’s way is a search for identity.
Your own nature will emerge through a critical (and I don’t mean negative) examination of the photos you make.
The three critical questions you need to ask yourself are as follows:
What do you love to photograph?
Why do you love to make those photos?
What is there about How you make those photos that sets you apart?
Please take the time to separate your very best photos from the rest.
Take a closer look at the best of the best and, with an open mind, listen to what they have to say.
Your photos will tell you what you're about and, ultimately, who you are.
This lovely green image was made in the Botanical Gardens in my hometown, Hamilton, a small regional town in Australia.
I made the photo on my birthday and it’s very much an image of self discovery and renewal as I spent a lot of time in these gardens during my late teens and early twenties.
Once you know what you’re about and what it is you need to photograph to satisfy your hearts desire, you need a way forward to make it a reality.
Perhaps it’s time you got the basics sorted.
Are you comfortable with your camera and/or post processing skills?
If not then you need to take some action quickly, before your motivation disappears.
It’s amazing what a little structure and expert guidance can do to set you on the artist’s way. You know, the one you really want to be on.
About To Travel?
Separation and Connection: Partners In Creativity
Once you’re on the artist’s way it’s simply a matter of making more photos, more often.
To stay focused on what you do best it’s important to continually separate yourself from your least successful work and keep concentrating on your very best photos.
Let your images speak to you. They will tell you what you’re good at and what you need to improve to progress as a photographer and as an artist.
This photo of a colorful window and wall in the LaBoca neighborhood of Buenos Aires is a good example of the notion of separation and connection.
Elements in and around the window are highly organized and visually connected to each other. Take the three pots which are organized to form a triangle, a powerful shape in composition.
But the iron bars in front of the window act to separate it from the surrounding wall and, by extension, the outside world.
It’s a good example of the use of symbolism and metaphor in photography.
Creative image exploring the often facile nature of fashion and celebrity.
Your Creative Life And the Photos you Make
By all means have fun making snaps and practice composition with your mobile phone but, when it comes to serious photography, it might now be time for a more structured approach.
Take a look at this night photo made in Shanghai, China. It was a very tricky image to make as it’s highly structured and based largely around very exacting composition.
Visually that’s critical to the success of the picture because it’s the composition that draws the eye and, as a result, encourages a deeper investigation as to what the photo is about.
From my point of view it’s an image that explores the often facile nature of fashion and celebrity.
The Artist’s Way and Your Path Forward
Start to plan photo walks and local adventures not so much around the destination, but around the type of photos you want to make.
Edit those photos down to your very best images and begin to sequence them into harmonious collections for exhibiting, showcasing and sharing with the world.
Perhaps you don’t see yourself exhibiting or making photo books. Don’t worry there’s plenty of other options.
A website gallery or a structure approach to posting on social media is a totally legitimate way to share your work and to cultivate an audience.
But whatever you do, you’ll feel better about it if you do it as well as you can.
Having a more strategic approach to what you post online, and the order in which you do so, is a good start.
Try organizing the images you post so that they present a more cohesive stream of photos.
This is very important to the brand you build. And all creative photographers, fine art and commercial alike, should think seriously about the brand they create.
After all, your brand is central to your identity as a creative soul.
Tegalalang rice terrace, Bali suggests how to cultivate a more creative life.
How To Cultivate A More Creative Life
This image showcasing the Tegalalang rice terrace in Bali, Indonesia promotes the notion of the need to cultivate a more creative life.
It features an idyllic landscape that’s been, quite literally, carved out of the earth and cultivated with great care and attention to detail.
Invest the same level of care in your own creativity and you’ll well and truly be on the artist’s way, living the life you were meant to live.
The good news is that you don’t have to dwell in a garret to do so.
Whether you’re a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker it’s not so much what you do, but how you go about doing it that matters.
But you’ll find it so much easier to find meaning and purpose in your work life when you make time to explore your own creativity.
It’s taken me many years to establish processes and workflows that enable me to progress along my own, unique creative path.
I’m able and happy to share that knowledge so that it saves you the time and trouble of working it out for yourself.
I’m a very experienced photographer and teacher and I’d be happy to help you out on your own, individual creative journey.
I’m currently based in Melbourne, Australia. Feel free to contact me to see how I can best help you.
