“The reality is that it’s easier to be inspired than it is to create an original idea and we are hardwired to take the path of least resistance. It’s easier to jump onto a design inspiration gallery site than it is to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. It’s easier to follow a pattern than it is to test-drive new options. It’s easier to copy a style or idea that works than try something that might miss the mark or outright fail. Above all, it’s cheaper mentally for us to rally around what’s already been done and emulate it…”
The above excerpt is from a brilliant post by Owen over at Viget.com. Well worth the read. Do it.
Personally, I couldn’t agree more. How much time is the right amount to stroll thru galleries, troll creative sites, and watch online videos?
And what about you?
Are you too busy getting inspired by the work of others to create your own?
Do you read about the failures of others, so you don’t have to try?
Is the convenience of information actually reducing your willingness to struggle to make something worthwhile?
Sat around reading to many blogs takes away from the time to be creative! See ya I’m out of here! :-))
I think it’s helpful in discussions like this to take a look at what we mean by the big words we use. “Inspiration” gets used in all kinds of ways, so we all have a different sense of whether it does or doesn’t kill creativity. I’ve been thinking a lot about Owen’s original post since I first read it, and I think a simply return to the original meaning of the word might help some of us. Inspiration simply means to “breathe in” – it’s the opposite, or the precursor to expiring, which literally means to “breathe out.” It is not the bolt from the blue, but the amassing of inputs – the things we read, the things we look at, the music, the books, the movies, the conversations, all the things we ingest that then incubate and eventually come out when we put the camera in hand or put our butt in the chair to write. True inspiration comes from working and it’s not a substitute, nor a threat, to creativity, but a precursor to it.
Well said!, Mr. duChemin.
Very valid points. Finding your own creativity, finding the source of from where you draw your own ideas has different roots. There are the artists and people who inspired us and still inspire. Essentially, there is nothing wrong with it. If it becomes a point of standing still and makes us lazy to create it becomes a huge problem and art becomes production.
It is our imagination, the images within us that are not real yet that move us forward to new heights.
This process is difficult and using inspiration as a catalyst to create something new is the real art.
I have found myself vacillating back and forth on what creativity means to me as a photographer…The antisepticated definition of creativity from dictionary.com:
“The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.”
Creativity…Is it inspired from others?…Is it something new?…And when do you cross the line from studying other styles to creating your own style? How the heck do you attain it? Are you born with it? Is it like singing? Can you learn it, or do you have to already have the talent in order to build it? Some seem to have it already pre-built, while others have to nurture it, and others just flat don’t have it. Eeek..and the more I try to build my own style the more I feel I fall into the latter….
I find a possible three step progression of the creative newb to the master….Study, Creating Your Own Style, and Invention, the last of which is the BFG of creativity, in my mind. This is the level one frickin’ CREATES creativity the likes of which all other levels are a mimic of in one manner or another.
I can understand where that excerpt may ring truth, but for some, they seek inspiration from others to see what else they don’t already notice and to seek a new perspective on such things. If the artist seeks inspiration only to closely mock the other artist then it does ruin the creativity process. Some have searched for inspiration in order to learn from others failures and sucesses and see what others take notice to that they do not. It sparks the imagination and allows room to grow as a photographer.