What Photography Has Taught Me About Creativity
When I started this blog on creativity I kept thinking about how fun it would be to use it as an excuse to actually take part in other creative fields in order to compare and contrast creativity across disciplines so… here we are. I decided a good discipline to examine would be photography mostly because stealing my dad's camera to walk around and take photos sounded like a lot of fun. Seriously though, I was really interested in how many similarities, if any, I could draw between taking photos and making music.
My research mostly consisted of understanding how the camera I was using — a Canon AE-1 — worked. At first, I was so confused by the different variables… ISO, shutter speed, aperture, exposure, etc. Eventually, I kind of decided to understand everything to the best of my ability and go with the fuck it we ball mentality. Equipped with very little equipment (a film camera and a few rolls of 35mm film) I took to the streets of LA.
Okay… I actually went to Malibu but “The Streets of LA” sounded way cooler. I got to the beach, took two or three photos, and then immediately ruined my entire first roll by opening up the camera. Deciding to go with film photography was definitely ambitious… Anyway, I loaded another roll in and started photographing. The very first similarity I noticed between photography and music is the search for a subject. When beginning the process of writing a new song oftentimes musicians find themselves asking “What/who/where/when am I going to write about.” I felt this same energy echoed in the process of deciding on what to shoot. There was much deliberation on my end as far as what I felt needed to be documented and what didn't. Similarly to music, and all creative fields, what gives something value is the person who thought that it was valuable. In other words, if I take a photo of a rock it’s probably gonna suck because I don't find the rock interesting. If someone else saw the same rock and it really spoke to them on a deeper level, their photo of the rock is probably going to be pretty good. In Malibu what spoke to me the most was the way the waves crashed and the way the birds flew. The waves hit the shore in an extremely predictable and rhythmic manner. Despite their strength, they weren't malicious. Each crash of a wave felt more intentional than random and dangerous. The birds, through thousands of years of evolution, have adapted perfectly to this climate. They dove in and out of the ocean often returning with a fish between their beaks. The way that they flew together so perfectly at high speeds just inches above the water was incredible to watch. Even more impressive was the fact that this synchronization required no conversation, or maybe I just couldn't pick up on their communication style. All of this intake felt much like gearing up to write a song, in fact, I nearly went straight to the studio instead of taking photos because I was so inspired by just stopping and observing the natural order of things. The difficult part for me though was the execution. I’ve written hundreds of songs, so it’s somewhat easy for me to take the sunlight of inspiration and funnel it through the magnifying glass of music. Photography was much harder because I had much less experience. I was still enamored by the beauty of nature, but capturing what I was seeing in a way that did it justice proved difficult. When I looked through the viewfinder I had to work to get that initial interest in the subject back. I felt betrayed by the camera. Eventually, though, I started getting the hang of it. It started feeling a lot more natural. “That's so pretty” click “Woah I never noticed that mountain” click “Yooo I wonder if I can take the photo right when the wave crashes” click. Photo after photo I really felt like I was getting the hang of it… then again I hadn’t actually seen the photos yet… cuz I’m shooting on film.
If taking photos is writing/recording a song then getting the photos developed is producing/mixing the song and color grading the photos would be mastering. I think that's pretty spot on tbh if there's any music and photography experts reading this please feel free to correct me. Anyway, after taking photos all day I went to get them developed. After I dropped them off… I waiting. Man, shooting on film sucks. Finally (a few days later) I got my photos back. To my surprise, they were pretty good. Most of them looked like some sort of fucked up science experiment (out of focus, blurry, shitty framing, etc.) but some of them I was actually really impressed with. Anyway, overall I feel as though there are endless similarities between photography and music. As I have expressed before creativity is creativity. There are much more similarities between creative fields than there are differences and realizing this only unlocks more modes of expression for those willing to try them out.
By the way… check out some of the photos I took below!
