G. Steve Journal

Serendipity

 

Came across this provocative video by photographer Jordan Matter (thanks petapixel) about embracing the fickle nature of on-location photography, which I pursued commercially for many years, and looking for and being open to alternative options -- aka serendipity -- when the assignment starts going south:

I expect serendipity to guide my creative process. No matter how high the stakes, I rarely plan out or storyboard my shoots. Instead, I rely on my instincts to see the spontaneous opportunities around me. 

 

Quite Astonished

Listening to All Things Considered on NPR one recent morning about Winston Churchill’s 1921 essay, “Painting as a Pastime” where he writes about how his new hobby changed the way he viewed the world.  No doubt this is true of any creative enterprise — as composer John Cage once remarked: “An artist’s job is to pay attention.”

Here’s what Churchill discovered:

One is quite astonished to find how many things there are in the landscape and in every object in it. One never noticed before so many colors on the hillside, each different in shadow and in sunlight, such brilliant reflections in the pool, each a key lower than what they repeat, such lovely lights gilding or silvering surface or outline, all tinted exquisitely with pale color - rose, orange, green or violet. And I had lived for over 40 years without ever noticing any of them.

Hopelessly Lost

From an article in the NY TIMES about composer John Luther Adams, another example of an artist's experience that has relevance to all creative endeavors, especially photography:

“I’m highly suspicious of political art,” he said. “I’m not a propagandist. I’m not trying in my music to teach a lesson or tell a story. I’m trying to discover a place and invite you into that landscape to find your own way and — if I’m lucky — get hopelessly lost in it.”

“Music is not what I do; it’s how I understand the world.” “We don’t really create anything except answers to creation. Everything that we do, everything that we think, and everything that we think we create ultimately derives from this incredibly rich and complex and diverse world that we live in. It’s impossible for us to separate who we are from where we are.”

 

Artist Statement

 

“I do not wish to comment on the work; if it does not speak for itself, it is a failure.”

                                                                                                    - George Orwell