So I'd like to bring this back to my original question which was about improving the creativity of my photography. I read, browse books and web sites, look at the work of others, and I think I'm gradually refining a personal style and becoming more specific about what I do. But is there an obvious starting point to the learning process? Something practical I ought to do first before even trying to make an improvement?
I ask, because you're clearly someone with broad experience in the academic process and I hope you may be able to suggest a first step from which a new journey might begin.
My advice is forget about striving for things that just look good and impressive for the sake of it... shooting to utilise techniques and craft skills for no other reason to make a "good" photograph. You need to consider what you are shooting and why. What are you saying with your work? Why would I be interested? Why would anyone be interested? What makes it different, or original, and therefore interesting in it's own right?
Why in the name of all that's holy would I be interested in looking at one more Cake Smash baby photo or one more image of a flower. Why? It means nothing to me. It's not my baby, and I've seen countless other images of flowers just the same... so why would I think "That's good"? It may be technically good, and if asked, I'll comment on it's merits, but is it actually "good" as a photograph to a wider audience? It's only relevant to the parent of the child really. Who else cares? The merit... the ONLY merit to images like this to a wider audience are in technique, or as learning tools if you're interested in learning those techniques. Would you hang an image of someone else's baby smashing a cake on your wall? Would you buy a book of babies smashing cakes? Unless you're being ironic, I can't see why anyone who wants to create genuinely creative work would do this. It's a commercial enterprise.. you do it to make money. That's not necessarily what makes a great photograph is it?
Don't just look at other people's work to appreciate technical
skill... look at it with a mind to working out why it was critically acclaimed in the first place, as the technical probably had little to do with it. Stop having "I want to make a great photograph" as your goal, and instead have "I want to make a great body of work that makes people think about the subject". Forget stuff produced to generate "likes" on flickr. It means nothing. I bet if Mary Ellen Mark put stuff no one's seen before in Flickr, it wouldn't get many likes, or make "explored". I bet Bill Brandt wouldn't get many likes either... or William Eggleston, or Weegee, or Robert Frank. So why place so much value in it? You're being judged by the public. Decide what you want to achieve. If all you want is adoration from the public, then just make shiny things - practice your craft, make impactful images that have wow factor: You'll do well. Just as middle of the road pop acts do well with the public.. so will your middle of the road eye candy. The dissonance arrives when people who shoot eye candy want to get the same serious recognition as artists. That's like One Direction moaning because they'll never win an Ivor Novello award. Why should they? They do nothing original, they do not innovate, and they are not pushing the boundaries of music writing or composition... the very thing the awards are designed to recognise. So in that vein, you get amaterurs who take very technically advances images that have tons of "wow" factor... 20K likes... explored a million times saying "I don't get it... how can photographers like Jurgen Teller make a mint and get famous and I can't". Well, the uncomfortable truth is, your work is not really offering anything. It may look astounding, but how is it any different from the billion other pretty pictures out there by a billion other amateurs? Even the really stunning visuals in National Geographic have a real purpose.. they educate and show things that enlighten.
Basically.. get embroiled in a subject you know well, or wish to know better, and use your camera to explore it. Research the subject... become expert in it, and document it, or illustrate it however you want... the value comes from the fact that you care, and you're showing me that you care. That doesn't mean it has to be documentary by teh way. Look at Fay Godwin's landscapes.... they're just landscapes... what makes then interesting is the themes they explore, and the fact that they need to be considered as a whole.. all of them... not just one at a time as a series of eye candy (which they're not... most camera clubs would slag them off horribly).
Look at Nadav Kander and work out why his portraits are so good. Never mind whether you LIKE them or not... never mind if you think TECHNICALLY you could do better (unlikely to be honest)... work out why he has managed to do what very few can.. get stuff on display in the National portrait gallery.... commissioned to shoot the world's most famous and influential people... why is that? Why is Mary Ellen Mark so revered when they're just back and white snapshots? Why was Cindy Sherman so revered for taking some technically flawed rear projection images, and photos of mannequins with genitalia? Why?
They had something to say of course. They created a reaction... they puzzled, challenged, divided... but they generated interest and discussion.
"Ahh... but why can't art just be there to look nice?" It can... no one's saying it can't. Joe Cornish does OK after all. But the world already has a Joe Cornish... so what are you going to bring to the table? Further more... how are you? By watching you tube tutorials on techniques and post processing? Really?
Purpose and originality is pretty much what you should be aiming for.
It's actually very, very hard to sum all this up in one paragraph. Essentially the process would be to have someone offer you ongoing critique on the work. Not someone who's going t just comment on your sharpness, composition, processing and rules of bloody thirds... but someone who's qualified to be CRITICAL of your work as a work of art... another artist in other words.
Either ignore Flickr or accept it for what it is: some useful online storage.
Learn to sift through the tech only crit from the real critique. Pay more attention to crit that actually discusses the images as means of communication and their content rather than technique.... or at least aren't JUST technique. Once you're a competent technician, put all that to one side.... or just separate it from the real crit... treat it as something else.
I don't have a silver bullet. No one does. If you want to start working on your output as something more serious than eye candy, then you need the crit of others who also think of photography as something more than creating eye candy. That's step one, surely.
