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[OM] Creative liberation [was Magnum pro with Oly gear]

Subject: [OM] Creative liberation [was Magnum pro with Oly gear]
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:16:00 -0700
Christos Stavrou wrote:
> Tom..
> You're reading my mind!
> especially that comment saying something like 'none was realising i
> was taking photos' is still in my mind...Photojournalism, here I come!
>
> Mind you, though, I've used already a small p&s can-on a80  in the
> past.. that's why i also added that despite all the plus, they don't
> seem very liberating in artistic terms..
>   
The liberation is an internal event.

A camera, or other tool, doesn't create the liberation. The liberation 
creates the choice and manner of use of the tool in its movement toward 
external expression.

Picking a camera because someone else uses it is seldom going to have 
new creative results. Following one's own vision of the finished 
product, finding tool(s) and learning how to accomplish the goal, which 
will often change as a result of the process will often result in new 
creative energy and results.

Because such a journey is personal, the results will satisfy the doer. 
They may or may not be seen as creative, new, different, worthwhile, 
etc. by others.

I'm sure I seem like a pretty conventional photographer to others. 
Static landscapes, scenes of nature, rocks, trees, flowers, critters, 
little details - it's all been done before, often much better. And yet - 
when I see something that's looks/feels special to me and make the 
effort to photograph it and create an image that captures what I saw 
that moved me. When I do that and succeed, there is a frisson of 
pleasure, a feeling of creation, accomplishment, that is as important to 
me as food.

Sometimes I post one of these images and there is no response at all, or 
response that obviously misses what I see in it. And I look at it again, 
and that something inside goes "booinnng" again, and I'm happy; puzzled, 
but content. I'm pretty sure the same thing happens in the other 
direction with regularity. Sometimes I don't see why the picture was 
taken in the first place let alone presented to others. Sometimes I see 
something in it that affects me, but is likely not what the creator sees 
in it. And sometimes I am moved and changed by the same thing that moved 
and changed the creator - magic!

Alex Majoli knew what he wanted to do and chose unconventional tools to 
accomplish it. That doesn't mean that the same goal is or is not what 
will make anyone else's soul sing, nor does it mean that the same tools 
will or will not be right for anyone else on a similar path.

If I see what someone else does or a tool that they use, and there is 
that sometimes subtle interior felt shift, then yes, trying that path 
will fulfill me in some way - until it doesn't. If I don't feel that 
guiding internal sense, emulating someone else because I think I ought 
to, or because they are successful or because others praise them, or 
because I think it will make money, or fame for me, will only lead to 
suffering.

Moose

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