from PhotoLA 2009
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep.
- scott adams
I spent the whole day yesterday perusing the wonderful event in Lon Angeles, PhotoLA 2009. I visited more than 70 galleries and photobook publishers all packed in a common shared space displaying a huge diversity of pictures and photobooks. Huge diversity of content, style and periods, from exquisite vintage prints to modern contemporary photography. Browsing around there were lots of people of all kinds, photographers, dealers collectors and photography lovers, all seeking and enjoying the visual experience.
There were so many pictures to see … and then, there were so few pictures to look at …
One can easily imagine that the images exhibited by the galleries were indeed an insignificant percentage of the work they have access to, and likewise, the percentage of images that the photographers share with the galleries was an insignificant percentage of they pictures they take, even when some of the projects [usually the best] take years for the photographer to develop. The images at exhibit were a selection of a selection of a selection.
Why selection matters? because in many ways selection enables creativity. To be creative you need to push, you need to go beyond boundaries, and most times trying to be creative leads to crap, work that is average at best. But after trying a “million” times, some gems are created. And here it comes a key step in creativity – only if you are able to eliminate the “average” you can reveal the good work.
So creativity in art and in photography is about trying a million times and select, select and select.
The photographer has to eliminate from the portfolio all but the extraordinary images, and the galleries have to curate all but the extraordinary of the extraordinary. All you are left with is an small percentage of the work that is being produced. So, when we awe about the creativity of great photographers, we indeed awe on their ability to eliminate the crap, put aside the good and only show the excellence.
The process of creativity is a process of selection.
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