Creative Process - Just Do

Ice Bloom by J. Binford-Bell

When I was writing all the how-to-write books advocated sitting in front of a typewriter or computer for a set number of hours. At that time the blank word processing screen could be hidden behind a solitaire game but now you can so fill you computer screen with nonsense you will not know the word processor is awaiting your first line.

But I think it is all about intention. You sit before the computer with the intention of writing. Now I sit in front of the computer with that intention, dry dark rooming the perfect photograph, and coming up with an idea for a painting. Oh, and press releases for my work, and finding new exhibits or venues, shopping for equipment for the camera or materials for painting. So even the intention and purpose has gotten blurred.

I started this blog, in the beginning, to explore the creative process and then I got into just showcasing my work, allowing a venue for my poems, etc. I am lucky some weeks when I post one poem or one new photograph and sometimes that is in order to have something (anything) to link into G+ of Face Book. Keep that audience interested!

This blog is a promise to return here more frequently and back to my original direction at least once a week. More blogs on the Creative Process. And in customary blogger egotism I am doing it mostly for me. We teach what we most need to learn. Today it is INTENTION.

And I a finding intention is not just sitting in front of my time wasting computer. And it is not sitting in front of it. It is focusing on what I intend to do while here - or not here. At the moment the intention of photography is best served with camera in hand and an assignment be it outside or inside. This week my assignment has been reflections in ponds (and an accidental remnant of ice here and there).

Brightside down  by J. Binford-Bell

Magique at Pond's Edge by J. Binford-Bell

The weather has been great outside and with the ice just melted the ponds have been like mirrors in the morning. But more than just capturing reflections it has been about composition. How much can you reduce the image to heighten it. And of course the object in the foreground to give scale and depth.

In Brightside down I cropped off the tops of the real trees. And of all the photos of reflections in the pond the one with Magique in the front held the most magic. And then there was the one where Magique chased the geese who flew in the pond and messed the reflections all up.

Sunrise Geese by J. Binford-Bell

With art, be it photography or paint, you sometimes get what you get. The artist will recognize the happy accident. But unless you are in the studio with your paint or in the field with your camera, and dog, you won't get any happy accidents at all.

So my new intention is to not sit as much in front of the computer unless my intention is dry darkroom or a blog on the creative process.