Creativity - a learned skill or "you're just born with it"?

Quicksnapper

Quicksnapper

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Last evening we had one of our club competitions. I try to enter pretty much every one; if nothing else, just to get some constructive feedback on my images. It seems I'm starting to get somewhere from a technical point of view as my stuff is always properly exposed, not OOF, Ok composition, getting to grips with pp issues little by little etc. I got decent enough scores for the three prints I entered (15, 16 and 17 out of 20).

But the higher scoring entries seemed to have the edge just from the point of view of the creative approach the author had taken to either the original shooting of the image, in addition to all the stuff listed above: the way it was cropped, the way the subject was portrayed or the pp they had used on it. Maybe it was just this judge's preference but I wondered how (if at all) you learn to be more creative in that regard. Not in the technical aspects of producing an image, but on the way it's conceived, put together and presented.

Having read that back, I'm not sure I'm making much sense, but I guess what I'm trying to get to is whether "artistic impression" of an image is something you can learn, of whether it's just a sort of innate skill which you either have or don't have. (Also, of course, if it's something you can learn ... then where and how ...?) As photographers, as we artists or technicians (or both)?

I'd be interested in any views on this.
 
I think it can be either or a combination of both. Most probably the latter. Folk that are naturally creative probably have an advantage over most of us.

There are masses of books on it. Read plenty and some is bound to rub off.
 
Ive always been a believer that pretty much everything can be learned. For photography, I think it helps obviously if you do have a naturally creative side to you though. A lot of people are probably more creative than they think, but have difficulty harnessing that in their output, and I think I fall in to that category a little. I just find that I have to really work/interrogate a scene/subject to get the best out of myself creatively. Some people will just see an amazing shot straight away (annoyingly), but I really do have to work at it. Different angles, different perspectives and viewpoints. Different camera settings to the norm, pushing or breaking the 'rules' etc etc. It all takes practice, but im sure you will get there. if you are getting good scores and opinions on your photos, you obviously have SOME talent for it, so you just need to work on it more.
 
I don't think it can be learned but our creative energy can be unblocked. We are all far more creative than we think but sometimes it needs unblocking. The Artists Way is a very good book to help allow our creativeness to come through.
 
It's a bit of both.

However, the things you mention such as presentation, cropping etc, in my mind, are not really the creative elements of an image.. although cropping could be seen as such. At the end of the day though, an uncreative image is rarely transformed into a creative one through cropping.

Creativity comes from the concept... from what the artist wants to say and communicate to the viewer, and then being able to pre-conceive how that is best communicated.

Creativity starts before you even pick a camera up, by understanding why you're picking it up in the first place.

This image by Leonard Freed is a great example.


It's not that spectacular technically... but it's one of the greatest images ever taken IMO: Think about what it says!! As the poet Phillip Larkin wrote... "Why aren't they screaming?" How can you get so old, and not go insane with the fact that you're nearly dead being so pervasive in your mind? It's fascinating... disturbing... frightening... and beautifully observed. Enter that image in a camera club though, and it will get a damned good panning from everyone, because they're just missing the point. So... the real question is... do you actually understand what creativity looks like? Many people confuse "wow" images with creative, and they're not. They're visual chewing gum.. nothing more. Some image combine wow with creativity too.

This image by Burtinsky has power and impact...


But it's not just been taken to look good, there's a reason. It's from a series called Shipbreaking, and it's part of a project on how perfectly capable ships were broken up when insurance companies refused to insure single hulled tankers, regardless of what they were carrying. It also looks at the plight of the very poor and often very young workers (as young as 8 years old) who break these ships once they've been rammed into various Indian beaches at full speed.

It's interesting!!! It communicates, educates, fascinates... but it does so through being a body of work, not in a single image.

Revise the way you work. If you just go out with a camera and no idea what you want to create, then you're not being creative... simple as that.

Forget post processing for a while too. It can, if used well, enhance an already great image, but if you just put it out of your mind for a while, you'll learn to look for what makes an image engaging without resorting to PP.

Think about the subject and WHY you're shooting it... what do you want to show me in your images? What are you saying with them. If you struggle to answer that question then you've probably not thought about it, so you're probably not being creative.

People assume that creative people just sit there and get ideas out of the blue. [PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BYPASS THE SWEAR FILTER]!... they don't. It's hard work. You have something to say, and you research ways in which to say it, and develop the work over periods of time through peer review, self-critique and determination. You'll occasionally get a flash of inspiration, but that's a starting point... most people just run off shoot that one image in a reactive way to that inspiration, then draw a line under it. That's wasteful.

Everyone has the potential to be creative, but it's stifled by prescriptive ideas indoctrinated into us by rules, techniques on you tube, post processing obsessions, and prescriptive ideas in camera clubs (sorry... but it's generally true - there may be good ones out there, but most I've been to wouldn't recognise creativity if it punched them full in the face).


Go it alone for a while. Forget trying to please people on the internet or at a camera club. Since when has art been a competitive sport?? That's another reason people stop being creative: They start to take images to gain accolades and recognition.. to get "likes", but they do so by trying to out "wow" the next person. Do you want to please the man in the street with some visually impactful but meaningless pap, or do you want to engage thinking people into appreciating your work for being considered, thoughtful and interesting?

Go and find something to say... and say it... with a camera. It doesn't have to be profound... just interesting. You'll have opinions... go visualise them.
 
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Ex nihilo nihil fit - nothing comes from nothing. You need something to create from. A pump gives water, but needs priming. OK, dropping the analogies, I think creativity can be learned. BUT not everyone will have the same potential. You can learn the technicalities of photography, yes; but you need a certain degree of dedication if you want to master absolutely all the technical stuff, and a certain measure of intelligence. Even in the parts that can be learned by rote, you need the will power to perservere with the dull stuff, and the intelligence to known when and how to apply it.

On the creative side, it helps if you study two areas: the history of photography (meaning not the technical, but the artistic) and art, especially painting. You then know what the basic building blocks are that you can use, how people have assembled them in the past, what works and what doesn't. And why. To aid in the latter, add in a study of perception. Finally, it helps to communicate an idea if you have an idea to start with! Clarify what you want to achieve, because without that you're aiming at a target you can't see clearly, and success will be down to chance.

Even apart from art and photography, there are books available addressing just this concept of creativity.
 
It can be learned through hard work and perseverance. In my experience being creative in a camera club is a no-no especially in competitons, conformity and please the average judge is the name of the game; it can also have a very negative impact, what if the judge awarded you 8 out of 20, how would you feel then? Your technical skills should be used to enhance and portray effectively what you have to communicate and what interests you; if you have nothing to say wait until you do and study in the meanwhile.
 
StephenM said:
You can learn the technicalities of photography, yes; but you need a certain degree of dedication if you want to master absolutely all the technical stuff, and a certain measure of intelligence. Even in the parts that can be learned by rote, you need the will power to persevere with the dull stuff, and the intelligence to known when and how to apply it.
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The creative process starts before you even pick the camera up. The technical aspects may be necessary to realise a vision, but plays no role in the conception of that vision, and the vision is where creativity lies. Techniques are just that... they can be learned from you tube. It's not even knowing when to apply them... although that helps. Creativity is in the ideas... it's a way of thinking, and is the same for all visually creative person regardless of their chosen medium.

You are utterly correct in stating that creativity does not come from applying newly learned techniques though. Many newcomers fall into this trap. It's all on the surface with them. Ask them WHY they took the image, and they will not be able to answer you. If they can't explain to me why I should look at their work... then why should I look at their work?
 
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Pookeyhead said:
The creative process starts before you even pick the camera up. The technical aspects may be necessary to realise a vision, but plays no role in the conception of that vision, and the vision is where creativity lies. Techniques are just that... they can be learned from you tube. It's not even knowing when to apply them... although that helps. Creativity is in the ideas... it's a way of thinking, and is the same for all visually creative person regardless of their chosen medium.
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Fully agree; my point was that even the non creative side has limits beyond which an individual will not pass. Many people seem to see "creativity" as something that you're born with, and technique as something that can be learned. Hence my point that both are equal in this respect; both can be learned, but both have limitations imposed by the individual. I hoped to make it clear that this was what I meant by pointing out that even technique can't be learned by an individual beyond a certain point. I was starting with what I thought was the simpler concept to give an analogy that I hoped would make the more difficult (because often denied) one easier to grasp.
 
StephenM said:
Fully agree; my point was that even the non creative side has limits beyond which an individual will not pass.
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Ok.. gotcha!

I'd rather see creative and engaging work that's technically flawed than technically superb images that are just technical exercises though... every time.
 
Or as Ansel Adams put it "a fuzzy picture of a sharp concept over a sharp picture of a fuzzy concept".
 
Exactly.
 
Being Artistic/creative (put these together as usually hand in hand) will always help as you already have concept of light and light formation and how the colours combine, however you can learn these skills but that doesn't make you more creative. However everyone is born creative as kids i'm sure we all played with toys and made scenes with them, its just how you tap into that creativity and what sparks that creativity least we forget this is very subjective!

Just my opinion.
 
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Tintin124 said:
Being Artistic/creative (put these together as usually hand in hand) will always help as you already have concept of light and light formation and how the colours combine, however you can learn these skills but that doesn't make you more creative. However everyone is born creative as kids i'm sure we all played with toys and made scenes with them, its just how you tap into that creativity and what sparks that creativity least we forget this is a very subjective!

Just my opinion.
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Your bang on. Kids get the creativity hammered out of them by parents and at school.
 
Is that learning to be creative or just learning? I agree with preferring to see 'creative and engaging work' over technical exercises and I'm learning to view different photographs differently rather than dismissing them as 'rubbish' which can be a challenge in itself.
 
Just to be obtuse :D:

"To think that you can come up with a better idea than what the world is offering you (in exchange for a little patience) is foolhardy. Life is more creative than you. Spend some time looking around and it will give you images that you could never imagine yourself." KJ

Photography is all about looking and seeing.

It's true that creativity lies in the ideas - and in knowing when to apply certain techniques to make the ideas work. However, there is no need to start out with a concept, you can use chance to generate ideas - take a lot of photographs without having any preconceptions then study them to find out why you took them and the ideas in them. Work from those ideas and, if you think carefully, more ideas will develop. You can use photography to help you understand how you look at the world, and use that knowledge to inform your photography.

Doing work is the best form of inspiration there is. Artists are constantly practising - sketching, doodling, generally playing with their medium. Not to mention looking at other people's work, including in other spheres of art.

Of course not everyone likes to work in this way. Some like to plan everything meticulously beforehand, working towards a known goal. I prefer to extemporise and lead myself down unexpected paths. It's all down to your mind functions.
 
I asked myself this same question a year ago so I had a look back at my first images.

You know what I realised? Most of them were all within the rules of photography and I didn't know what the hell I was doing!

There's a couple in my current portfolios that were taken in my first month of shooting.

That only leads me to believe that whatever you have inside you creatively can be nurtured but I'm not sure you can learn how to see a good image.

I believe that if somebody doesn't have that creative edge to them, their images will only ever be so-so.

But that's my theory and I appreciate it's a difficult one or impossible to prove.
 
It's clearly both. Anyone can be taught to sing... to an extent, but you need a beautiful voice to be a singer with a beautiful voice. You're either born with that, or you're not. Some people just have interesting minds, and hence interesting thoughts... others don't. Education can change the way you think though... but it won't make you more intelligent. You'll know more stuff... but that's not how intelligence is measured... if it can be at all.

Whatever your inherent level of creativity, it can be improved by working on how you see the world, your viewpoint, and your level of education.
 
The tricky part (in my opinion) is being able to recognise a good image - it's not always straightforward. Analysing why it's good may take practice, but that's all it takes - practice, not an innate ability. And once you know what makes a good image and why, all you have to do is to learn to see what's in front of you - not what you think is in front of you. That is the trickiest part of all. After that, provided you know what can be achieved in your chosen medium, it's plain sailing. You don't even necessarily have to know how to do it - just that it can be done.
 
I'm absolutely convinced that everyone is born more or less equally creative.

Some people are lucky enough to have that creativity nurtured and encouraged, others - probably most of us - have it squashed in some way or other.

But, it is always still there. The challenge is to find it. The number and strength of the barriers to it, put in place since childhood, determine how difficult it is for adults to re-awaken.

I would ask anyone who is quick to believe they are not a creative person to really, honestly, examine where that belief comes from. It could be something as simple as "Mrs. Jones, a teacher at primary school, said my drawing of a horse wasn't very good."
 
Pookeyhead said:
......, and your level of education.
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Which brings me back to my first Latin proverb. Lateral thinking is a fairly creative process, but it requires that you can look, well, laterally - sideways. You need to be able to see in other than a blinkered manner, and you need to have access to a wide range of information. The more you know, the more there is "to the side" that you can harness.
 
StephenM said:
Which brings me back to my first Latin proverb. Lateral thinking is a fairly creative process, but it requires that you can look, well, laterally - sideways. You need to be able to see in other than a blinkered manner, and you need to have access to a wide range of information. The more you know, the more there is "to the side" that you can harness.
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Yeah... I'd agree with that in the main. You definitely have to be able to see the world in a less that descriptive, surface only way. I suppose the debate is how much of that can be taught.
 
Right up until the Wright brothers flew, conventional wisdom was that heavier than air flight was impossible. Once shown that it was, lots of people built flying machines. Until Roger Bannister showed that it was possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, no one managed it. Knowing that it could be done, several people followed him into a sub four minute mile in the same year. I don't think diet and training had as much effect as the belief that it could be done. Thinking something is inherently impossible is a great disincentive for many people to attempt it.

Believing that you can be taught is the essential first step. After that, to return to the Wright brothers, knowing something of engineering and aerodynamics would definitely help you to build a powered aeroplane. I think it's the same with creativity - there are principles you can learn, ways of looking that you can learn, and then - and only then - do your inherent limitations come into play.

And at that point, we can revert to Roger Bannister. You might know that it's physically possible to run a mile in under four minutes, but it's certain that you won't manage it without training; and that is probably not the most enjoyable thing you can do. For many photo hobbyists, the effort required is a step too far for something that they do "for fun" and not for hard work.
 
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StephenM said:
Right up until the Wright brothers flew, conventional wisdom was that heavier than air flight was impossible. Once shown that it was, lots of people built flying machines. Until Roger Bannister showed that it was possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, no one managed it. Knowing that it could be done, several people followed him into a sub four minute mile in the same year. I don't think diet and training had as much effect as the belief that it could be done. Thinking something is inherently impossible is a great disincentive for many people to attempt it.
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I disagree with this in many cases, because many people are absolutely convinced that they are producing creative work, but they're just not. Many people suffer from hideous amounts of deluded over-confidence all to no avail. I'm sure what you say is a factor for some, but not all.
 
StephenM said:
The tricky part (in my opinion) is being able to recognise a good image - it's not always straightforward..
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That's true (but see my quote above). Although is it true? If I'm convinced that I am producing truly creative work, surely I probably also think that it's due to my being inherently creative - a cut above the plebs who aren't. Wouldn't that tend to imply that I don't think creativity can be learned, or would I simply be so big headed that I thought I had nothing to learn. no way of improving even more? And hence, there's no way of learning to be (even) more creative?
 
StephenM said:
That's true (but see my quote above). Although is it true? If I'm convinced that I am producing truly creative work, surely I probably also think that it's due to my being inherently creative - a cut above the plebs who aren't. Wouldn't that tend to imply that I don't think creativity can be learned, or would I simply be so big headed that I thought I had nothing to learn. no way of improving even more? And hence, there's no way of learning to be (even) more creative?
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Probably the latter. If anyone thinks they've reached the pinnacle of creative excellence, they're probably crap IMO. You never stop learning... and why would you WANT to?
 
I think the whole notion of creativity is a distraction. Consciously trying to make work that is 'creative' can lead to a search for novelty and, all too often, work which is mannered and shallow. Concentrate on making work that is true to the way you see, experience and react to the world. Do that and you will make original work (because it's personal) that is inherently creative.

JMO
 
Person A is creative..Person B can be taught the concepts of creativity and how to be creative.. But person B will never be as creative as person A...



Trust me..... :)
 
some great views!!! ... enjoyed mr pookeyhead's at the beginning of the thread,

now i'm just off out with my 1DX and 200-400 f4 USM to snap some duck's at the local pond ....:coat::exit:;)
 
Ed Sutton said:
I think the whole notion of creativity is a distraction. Consciously trying to make work that is 'creative' can lead to a search for novelty and, all too often, work which is mannered and shallow. Concentrate on making work that is true to the way you see, experience and react to the world. Do that and you will make original work (because it's personal) that is inherently creative.

JMO
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That would seem to imply that all one has to do to be creative, is eschew what anyone else is doing, and just do your own thing. Clearly that's not the case. I've known many who do this, and produce work as formulaic as those that strive for novelty.
 
Pookeyhead said:
That would seem to imply that all one has to do to be creative, is eschew what anyone else is doing, and just do your own thing.
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I'm not saying you shouldn't look at and be aware of other work. Of course you should. But you should still do your own thing even if it goes contrary to what your contemporaries are doing.

Any approach can produce formulaic work. It's recognising when that is happening, and finding ways round it, that is crucial.
 
Gentlemen …. just popped back in to see if anyone has picked up on my thread, to find this wonderful debate. Pookeyhead/David … thank you for your original post and the great advice it contained. Going it alone for a while feels like the right way to go at the moment, although its not something i would have considered as i feel as if I'm getting a bit sucked in to the club/competition environment, where the whole process of photography is a bit formulaeic, rather than being a channel for personal expression. Certainly, I would admit that I do still have a great deal to learn, but I'm at a point where I'm asking myself some serious questions about why I'm doing this, what I want to get out of it and what (if anything!) I want my efforts to say about me and my personal view of the world.

Clearly, true creativity is a combination of innate instinct for artistic creation coupled with learned technical ability. Together, these things combine to form artistic greatness and there are legions of good 'creative' artists out there to prove the point, but only a small handful of artistic genii. That extra level is innate in my opinion. One cannot learn brilliance, one can only learn to appreciate it in others.

Technically, I'm improving. Creatively, i have a great deal to learn, if what I think I want to achieve is even learnable. I may never achieve what I strive for … a level of satisfaction in a job well done, rather than my current state, which is an acceptance of a reasonable average and an acknowledgement that I am falling short of what I'd like to be achieving.

But that doesn't mean I'm giving up … far from it. It simply gives me something to strive for and aim at, which at my age and stage in life is no bad thing. Onwards and upwards. Thank you again for your insights, one and all.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I'm not saying you shouldn't look at and be aware of other work. Of course you should. But you should still do your own thing even if it goes contrary to what your contemporaries are doing.

Any approach can produce formulaic work. It's recognising when that is happening, and finding ways round it, that is crucial.
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I'll concede that point to you :) One caveat however: Without being creative, how does one recognise one's own creativity... or not as the case my may be. Seems paradoxical. I'll drink more coffee and ponder that some more :)

Having said that, my first post did recommend going it alone... and I still stand by this. There's much truth on what you say.
 
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Quicksnapper said:
but I'm at a point where I'm asking myself some serious questions about why I'm doing this, what I want to get out of it and what (if anything!) I want my efforts to say about me and my personal view of the world.
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You get out of it what you want eventually. You have to learn to stop trying to please others. You have to learn how to resist the urge to do what others do, except better, just to attain praise from your peers. You have to accept that some people will hate what you do. You have to accept that some people will just not understand.

I said earlier that this is NOT a competitive sport. It's not about "beating" others. In order to "beat" someone else, your work would need to be comparable, but the goal is to produce what you see as a fitting way of expressing the world around you. You can never, ever do that by copying others, or learning techniques. You can be influenced by others, but you'll find you will be appropriating other styles into yours in order to create new ones, not merely to emulate them.

Keep at it. I'm not saying leave the camera club, but you really need to stop playing by their rules. If that means you stop winning their competitions, then so be it. Who cares anyway, except the members of your club? You know you're onto something, when people want to talk to you about your work... when they ask you questions about it. It's when they say "That's nice" you need to worry :)
 
I believe that there's often a problem in that people attempt to be creative or "arty" as if that's an end in itself. It's not. And the idea that it might be is faintly absurd. It's how you get this contrived sort of "artiness" in some people's work: pointless black and white, jaunty angles for no reason, selective colour, doing a shallow DoF picture for the sake of it, etc*. They're trying to adopt a look that they see as unconventional and therefore creative.

The reality is that creativity is a means to an end. It's something that you do to solve a problem (working with quite a broad definition of "problem" here). In the case of art, like photography, the problem is usually the communication of an idea. The idea could be straightforward or abstract, but you're trying to employ composition and subject selection and the like in such a way as to create a coherent theme appropriate to what you want to communicate; and excluding or obscuring that which is irrelevant.

If you want to be creative, think of creativity as a process, not an end. Give yourself a problem and solve it. Think of an idea that you find interesting and go try to capture that idea thematically in a single image. Or a series of images. Don't just try to imitate the form of other work you've heard described as creative; it won't work, because creativity cannot be captured solely in the superficial arrangement of objects within a frame.

At least that's my thinking on the subject as an artistic novice.

*I've done all of this stuff and probably still naively indulge in the odd gratuitous gimmick now and again, though I try to avoid it.
 
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With the field of job I'm in, I would say definitely born with it. Yes, you can learn certain aspects, but I can spot a natural flair a mile away. I will give people chances to develop, but you know instinctively that they will either struggle or give up. This is in my line of work anyway.


My daughter is a very gifted artist, the images she can paint from her vision, not copying, is fantastic and she gets that talent from my wife, another good artist, and incidentally is great at photograph, as is my wife. Emily, my daughter, wants to pursue a career in the arts, the wife ended up being a nurse, and still regrets she didn't carry on with art, as she was put off with the "struggling, jobless artist waiting for a break" misnomer. They both have a natural flair though. I, however, am like Lowry....all matchstick cats and dogs, but lots more talentless in that field as far as drawing and painting are concerned....I.e, crap.
 
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