I’m delighted to welcome David duChemin back to the blog for his second guest article.

Photographers talk a lot about “inspiration” and yet it’s a difficult thing to define. Even more difficult to produce to order but that’s the topic of our exchanged posts. You can read my article on the same subject over at David’s pixelatedimage blog.

Whilst we’re talking about David, he’s just announced a book deal and anyone who reads his blog regularly will know that this isn’t likely to be your usual run-of-the-mill guide to “travel photography”. I’m guessing that there’ll be little discussion about the best way to back up your memory cards on location but lots of gems on how to achieve your personal photographic vision. I for one have already made space on my bookshelf.

Inspiration - A Beginner’s guide by David duChemin

“Photographic technique is no secret and, provided the interest is there, easily assimilated. But inspiration comes from the soul and when the Muse isn't around even the best exposure meter is very little help. In their biographies, artists like Michelangelo, da Vinci and Bach said that their most valuable technique was their ability to inspire themselves. This is true of all artists; the moment there is something to say, there becomes a way to say it.” Ralph Gibson

The creative muse is a bit of a mystery to me. In fact, were the truth be known, I often fear her the same way I feared girls in the seventh-grade. I worry that just as I get my hopes up about a romantic interlude I'll discover her giving more attention to someone else, leaving me with nothing to do but wander aimlessly with sad Charlie Brown music in my head.

I've often gone on assignment without vision, without direction, thinking, "what if I've shot my last good image? What if the muse is off inspiring someone else - like Gavin - right now, and all I come back with is a harddrive full of failure?"

Of course, it doesn't happen, and if you spend enough time with your muse you'll come to realize a few things and begin to trust them as a constant. We fear what we don't understand and the more you understand the process of inspiration, the more comfortable you can be with her seeming inconsistencies.

The first is that the creative process is not so simple that it can be reduced to a formula - go here, wait for muse, shoot brilliant image. It's not a reactive process dependant on a magic fairy appearing and beating you with an inspiration stick. Creativity is something you can actively work at, and the more closely you know your own process, the more reliably the muse appears. Having said that, I think we all know that somedays just don't go the way we want, and sometimes that's chalked-up to being uninspired. Or bored. Or lazy. Probably the latter two.

I really believe that the more you understand what you get inspired by, the more readily you can put yourself in her path. I know what gets my creative juices going. For me the low-hanging fruit is great light, interesting people, and exotic places where the homogeny of the west hasn't replaced the beauty of human uniqueness with a strip mall, a starbucks, and the fashion of the day. Some people love shooting that, I don't. So putting myself in a place I connect and resonate with, getting out early and staying until late in the evening, wandering aimlessly - that inspires me. As Joe McNally would say, put yourself in front of more interesting stuff.

But that's the low-hanging fruit - the easy stuff. What about when you're asked to shoot something that doesn't inspire you? Going back to Gibson's quote: "the moment there is something to say, there becomes a way to say it." Ask yourself how you feel, how you think, about this thing about which you are so uninspired. Find an opinion, find something in there that you ARE passionate about. Maybe it's just a passion for great light, or tones, or lines - shoot that.

I have a client that does custom upholstery for custom cars. Seats and cars provide precisely zero inspiration for me, but great lines and textures, those do. So I don't shoot them as seats, I shoot them as a playground of line and texture. I forget the label "car seat" and just look for sweeping line and the contrast of stitch on leather. I play with the light and I shoot images that my client loves because he doesn't see his work as just a "car seat" either. He sees it as art and the way I shoot them reflects that.

And then there's the times when your inspiration is just a general malaise preventing you from getting out there and discovering your muse. Sometimes you have to chase it down, hunt for it. Sometimes, pardon my frankness, we just need to stop making excuses and get out there and start seeing. Make a conscious effort not to see things as "a bicycle" or "a tree" but to see the shapes, the shadows, the lines, textures, and just play until it all comes together. Creativity is about receptivity and that doesn't happen until we let go of ourselves for a while. Nothing kills creativity, inspiration, or motivation like self-pity, self-doubt, and self-preoccupation.

Lack of inspiration is not an excuse for bad photography or no photography; it's a reason to get up in the morning, grab a camera, and go shake the cobwebs off your mind, your eyes, your spirit. Forget the absence of the muse, head out without her. Wander until your eyes open, then you'll find the muse is already there waiting.

David duChemin - June 2008

Tags: david duchemin, guest post

One of the many great things about my job is that I'm not constrained by location too much. Indeed, it's better for me to be able to work in whatever place I happen to be.


The commute

Today is one of those days when you know for sure that there's absolutely nowhere on earth that you'd rather be. England on a sunny spring day is unbeatable and this is one of the times when living here pays off big time. A spring-time England is so green that saying it's "very green" really doesn't do it justice. I've never seen a green as intense and vibrant as the green of an English spring. It's a green that's so green that it almost glows. It's not just green, it's greeeeeeeeeen.

You get the idea.


Arriving at the office

So, unfettered by the need to be in a particular office, I chucked my laptop into a shoulder bag and drove out to The Vyne, a National Trust house and garden where they've thoughtfully placed seats beside the river for those of us eager to extend the definition of hot-desking.

I'll consciously change perspective when I'm taking photographs. I'll crouch down, stand on a wall, step outside a room or even put the camera on the floor. It all helps prompt creative thinking and, by definition, enables you to see things from a different angle.


My desk

Changing physical surroundings achieves the same result. I'm sitting on a bench beside the river and suddenly my thought processes are opening up as wide and far-reaching as the view before me. So, if you're able to change your own surroundings for a few hours I suggest you do so. If there's a particular issue that you'd like to apply a more creative approach to, step outside of your familiar environment and let the change in surroundings inspire you. If you have to work in a particular location then at least move to another desk, take a walk to a part of the office that you don't usually visit, go and chat to somebody that you haven't spoken with for a while.


The Cafeteria

I recorded a few seconds of audio too.

I don't think there can be anything much more relaxing than the sound of birdsong.

A special prize to the first person to identify the bird that was singing in the tree above my "desk" this afternoon.

080507 Vyne

Me? I had some great ideas this afternoon. The best of which is that it should always be spring-time in England.

Tags: national trust