Kernan Creativity Workshop – Day 4

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Flow was easier today.
It could have been we had time to sleep on what we experienced yesterday. Often, I find that in a research and discovery phase you get fatigued from becoming supersaturated with new information. Then you have to put the problem down for a while. Gestate. When you return you don’t just pick back up where you left off. Essential things, sometimes conceptual, sometimes emotional, sometimes visceral, have been processed. I think of it as adding energy into an atomic structure. Add enough and electrons jump to a new level.
Alison Chase (veteran modern dancer, former artistic director of Pilobolus, generally delightful woman) worked with us today. We worked in teams. Mimicking. Passing movements down chains of people. Working in pairs to find a common center of gravity while transferring weight back and forth. All the exercises built upon one another, culminating in free form improvisational movement piece. She had all kinds of wisdom to share. “Play with ease before you go for virtuosity.””In improvisation there’s always a gray zone. Don’t stop and think. Just work your way through it.””Don’t think. Just respond.”
Greg Heisler and I spent most of the morning rolling around on the floor together. It took a while to work it out. But when we did, we did good. It felt good – physically, mentally, emotionally. Then we noticed the smudge of gum that had been under us the whole time. Neither one of us wants to know where it had been before we came in contact with it or where it’s gone since.
At the end of the day there was a palpable sense that something had been accomplished. What’s more it was accomplished in a medium most of us have essentially no skill in. It was confirmation of the suspicion that even out of our fields something resonant can happen. Alison encouraged us to continue, “Get our of your idea and respond. Stay in and things come out.”
Oh! Also. Did I mention we’ve been laughing the whole way through? Play leads to joy. Joy leads to inspiration. (There are other roads to breakthroughs besides “No pain, no gain.”)
We have a big assignment for tomorrow. “Extend a photograph.” Find out what that means tomorrow!
I tested my project tonight. It worked out great. I finally jumped into installation/sculpture work.
I’m sure that the other participant’s projects will be really interesting.
Check out Sean’s blog entries on the class here.
Check out fellow participant Russell Kaye’s blog here
Who’s Sean Kernan? Find out here.
Read my in depth conversation with Sean here.
Read Sean interviewing me here
Check out Sean’s creativity workshops here.
Check out my creativity workshop here.

Kernan Creativity Workshop – Day 3

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After meditation. After making marks with Japanese ink. More movement exercises. Free form modern dance improvisations.
We did a lot of distributing weight between partners – leaning, pulling, propping, lifting. For me, the most interesting was an exercise where we paired up. One person was the ‘sculptor’. The other person was the ‘clay’. The sculptor moves the other clay’s body into position with the corresponding body part – i.e. to move an elbow move it with an elbow. The flowing shapes were fascinating. At the end, Sean asked us to stop. And then asked the clay to walk away while the sculptor held the position. The shape of the sculptor was as expressive as the shape of the clay. You could see the missing clay in the void left behind.
Today was challenging. My flow in the first two days was excellent. I struggled more today. Trying to see how this relates to photography is a real stretch. Trying to see how I’ll apply it in teaching is less of a stretch. It’s good for team building. It’s good for improvisation. It’s good for shifting gears. It’s very collaborative. So how does an artist working in isolation with inanimate objects work this into his or her process?
My interpretation of what Sean is leading us to is that when we let go of convention (aculturated habitual responses – a language) and ego (our individual constructs for dealing with convention and society) we get down to an inner core (often unexpressed or highly filtered). This emptiness is full of potential. If you trust the process and just keep going, authentic responses emerge naturally.
We had a great breakout discussion at the end of the day. I learned a lot about Sean and his orientation to photography and other disciplines. It’s pretty courageous to consider giving up photography in order to seek a more authentic response in another medium like writing a novel, which he did temporarily. It’s pretty honest to respond, when asked by a publisher for 60 to 100 images, that, after a long career in photography, he has trouble finding more than 40 of his own images that really hit the mark for him. Those images still provoke a shift in consciousness.
So what do you do after a long day? Go drinking! My family (my wife, son, father)(and my assistant David Wright) had dinner with Sean Kernan, Jay Maisel, Greg Heisler. Afterwards, Jay and Greg came down to my studio and we drank wine and talked long into the night. It’s not surprising to find that we’re all our own worst critics. That’s good, as long as we don’t carry it too far.
Check out Sean’s blog entries on the class here.
Check out fellow participant Russell Kaye’s blog here
Who’s Sean Kernan? Find out here.
Read my in depth conversation with Sean here.
Read Sean interviewing me here
Check out Sean’s creativity workshops here.
Check out my creativity workshop here.

Kernan Creativity Workshop – Day 2

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Sean (Kernan) used a great metaphor today. “For me, discovering photography was like finding a white horse in the woods. You get on and it runs away with you. I spent a long time learning to control it. Now I spend a lot of time trying to get it to run away again.”
I knew the week would be different. I knew I would be kinetically and theatrically challenged. I know Sean. I didn’t know how I would find a personal connection to the exercises. I did today. I’ve always been fascinated by birds flying in flocks and fish swimming in schools in unison. We participated in a bit of that ourselves today. This connected with my interest in sensed but unseen patterns.
Today involved more motion. Sean patterned a lot of today’s activities on an acting method called Viewpoints (Anne Bogart and Tina Landau). We moved to varied music. We gestured in response to architecture. We walked patterns in unison. We made shapes with each others bodies. We followed and reacted to each other’s rhythms and gestures. None of us are trained actors/dancers, most are complete novices, and yet the results today were surprisingly expressive.
The picture for this blog entry is an improvisational exercise in motion Sean Harris and I did together. It was surprising. It felt good. Onlookers enjoyed it.
I use other art forms (forms I intentionally remain an amateur at) improvisationally (being spontaneous and suspending judgement), looking for reminders of what it takes to enter, sustain, and direct flow states. Doing this helps my professional work. You can develop an instinct for flow. You can prepare for it. You can learn to enter it faster and go deeper with it. But you can’t will it to happen in any traditional sense of the word.
Letting go was a big theme today. When we tried too hard it didn’t happen. When we cast aside ego and intellect another part of ourselves kicked in – and things worked. It seemed to me that true mastery comes when this happens. Technique is learned and facilitates expression and reception but is aimless until it’s put in the service of something. Curiously, that something always seems to involve surprise for the creator. Discovery. Break through. So what does it take to get into that state with photography? How do you know when you’re there? How do you sustain it? How do you direct it?
I’ve got a few clues but no definitive answers. Sure I want more and I’ll keep searching for them. But I’ve come to understand that the questions themselves are more useful than the answers. They keep you on your toes. They keep you awake. Trust the process. Out of engaging the process unexpected answers come.
Who’s Sean Kernan? Find out here.
Read my in depth conversation with Sean here.
Read Sean interviewing me here.
Check out Sean’s blog entries on the class here.
Check out Sean’s creativity workshops here.
Check out my creativity workshop here.

Kernan Creativity Workshop – Day 1

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(Kernan, Heisler, Maisel)
Last week, I taught my workshop Illuminating Creativity. Now I’m taking a workshop on creativity!
This week, my friend Sean Kernan is teaching a special workshop for instructors only at the Maine Media Workshops this week. Sean has a very different approach to teaching creativity than I do. He too loves to collaborate. In the past, he’s brought in people like Alan Arkin and the dance company Pilobolus.
Who will be taking the workshop with me this week? My wife Ardie. Oh and some guy named Jay Maisel. And another great photographer named Greg Heisler. And another great photographer named Elizabeth Opalenik. And another great photographer named Allison Shaw. And many more! I have no idea what will happen. I just know it will be a great week. Stay tuned! Every day, I’ll try to share at least one highlight here.
Today started with meditation. Nice move. It increases awareness. It focusses attention. It reduces judgement. It encourages receptivity. I often think we don’t focus on or speak about enough the states we’re in when we produce work, particularly the states we’re in when we produce our best work and how to get there. Meditation is one key among many. Play is another.
On the first day we played a number of theater games. Walk an imaginary line. Throw an imaginary ball. Play an imaginary game of tug of war. It worked when the participant focussed. It worked better when another participant cooperated with them. The event was changed by the group observing and focussing at the same time. Group dynamics (and how each of us responds to them) are fascinating. Collaboration can be extremely stimulating.
We walked and watched ourselves looking while focussing specifically at things and monitoring peripheral vision simultaneously. Taking notes in class made me even more aware of the elements in play while doing this. A significant new object or space demands attention. Moving objects demand attention. Motion produced by moving your body is less demanding. Focus of attention moves when a stronger pattern is observed. All patterns are contextual (patterns within patterns).
We watched Charlie Rose’s interview with sculptor Richard Serra. Serra speaks very visually about his primary passion – space. Its clear sight is one of the primary senses he experiences space with. At one point in the film he walks through his sculptures and the camera follows while he describes the experience of space produced by his sculpture. His physical gestures as he navigates his labyrinths make a statement like “This is the inside of the outside. This is the outside of the inside.” understandable. His sculptures give us a heightened experience of space. His work offers experiences of archetypes of space.
Moving in space seems to be the theme of the day.
What’s this have to do with making images? Nothing. Everything. None of us expect to make finished work this week. All of us expect to have a better understanding of what it takes to make better work at the end of the week. Sometimes not focussing on a final product, but focussing on the process instead reveals more and in the end, if that understanding is applied later, more work and higher quality work may ultimately be produced.
Who’s Sean Kernan? Find out here.
Read my in depth conversation with Sean here.
Read Sean interviewing me here.
Check out Sean’s blog entries on the class here.
Check out Sean’s creativity workshops here.
Check out my creativity workshop here.

Karen Daspit / Workshop Participant – Illuminating Creativity

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Karen Daspit lives in Hawaii. This is Karen’s 3rd workshop with me. She’s been photographing, sketching, and writing all week. Like most participants she had serious doubts about how relevant free associating with words could be for her photography. But she trusted me and the process and gave it a go. In less than an hour she had new ideas for 6 new bodies of work that were all relevant to her current vision. It’s thrilling to see people make these kinds of breakthroughs and see how enthusiastic they become. Then again, Karen’s always enthusiastic. I think there’s a connection between her positive attitude and the results she’s been getting in her photography. Her work is currently featured in the 2nd Annual Photography Masters Cup Yearbook.
“I have recently spent five days in Maine attending John Paul Caponigro’s workshop “Illuminating Creativity”. It should be noted that workshops, in general, are something I have only discovered over the last 10 years of my life. A workshop of any kind is a great way to take a vacation from the “usual”, and meet other people who share a common interest. There are many dimensions to workshops. The worst case scenario is that you become exposed to a new environment, learn something new, and go home somewhat rested.
How do you teach people from varied backgrounds to be illuminated, or, to discover and use their creativity? JP, has a long tenure as an artist, instructor and writer. He is a VERY creative person. More than this, he has developed through extensive study, a set of organizational and expressive skills that work in his own realm. He is also very capable of sharing this set of skills with his students. This talent, although simple to explain, takes much more skill to share. And this he has done, for me, and to me, over the last 5 days.
When you follow JP’s writings on his web site, it becomes apparent that he advocates certain methodologies. Readers are exposed to a variety of articles. There is espousal of palate selection, creation of an adherent body of work, and tips on how to evaluate your work for inclusion in a particular body of work. This is all above and beyond the technical attainment of Photoshop skills, which we all strive for.
Creating a “body of work” has become a cumbersome task for me. I have struggled long and hard to create my first BOW. I am now approaching the next step, of creating a second BOW. I have been again undaunted by the scope of the task. This workshop has made that task seem approachable for me, and I will attempt to tell you why.
One of JP’s exercises stands out for me. He requested that we all define our work in one word. With a second step of “free association” we all wrote down words that came to mind that reminded us of the said single word. I had a page full of words that made no real since to anyone but me. Then, he had us categorize these words. You would have to attend the workshop to find out how he spurred us on, and articulated the task. Basically, we wound up at the end of the afternoon with the ability to SEE and READ things that were of importance to us personally. We were able to borrow other people’s words and combine them into meaningful phrases. The synergy of the group contributed to our individual insight into what it was we might be interested into exploring further in our own work.
The net result is that I have ideas for new bodies of work. New words like deterioration and origin are now incorporated into my own perception of the work I do. I want to rush out and photograph dead leaves, beautifully decaying vegetables and rusted vehicles. This is truly thrilling for me. I have been illuminated creatively.
The workshop is much more than this single exercise. We have been exposed to a variety of creative tools that we can all use to better discover our roadmaps. Tools to better understand our processes, make them more efficient, and better articulate our inner desires have been presented. Mostly, JP stood strong on the platform of his experiential discoveries and shared them selflessly with all of us. What more can we ask?
One of the descriptors that we came up with was “transformative indulgence”. That about sums up what this week was for me.”
See Karen’s Flickr gallery here.
Find out about the workshop here. Get Priority Status for the next Illuminating Creativity workshop with absolutely no risk here. Just click “I’d Like Priority Status!”.
Find out about upcoming events here.

Making The Visual Verbal – Creativity

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It’s a privilege to be invited to guest post on Scott Kelby’s blog. Vincent Versace and Joe McNally contributed excellent first and second guest Wednesday installments. Mine’s the third.
I’m hoping guest blogging becomes an industry trend. I’ve already got several invites out to select colleagues who will join me here on my blog and I’ll join them on theirs! So be on the look out for more guest blogging!
The title of my guest post is Making the Visual Verbal. Do you think pictures should be seen and not heard? If so, you’re half right and half wrong. Commentary is no substitute for an image. Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. But, there are times and places for commenting on images. In fact, often words and pictures can complement each other synergistically to create a total effect greater than the sum of the parts. And, there are many different ways of making useful comments. Find out how and when in this essay.
Read the full post on Scott Kelby’s blog Photoshop Insider.
Download my related PDF on making Artists Statements here.
Read many of my Artist Statements here.
Hear me talk about my work here.
Remember to set up your RSS feed for automatic alerts on new posts for both Scott Kelby’s and John Paul Caponigro’s blog.

You Can Learn To Be More Creative – Creativity

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Many people think you can’t learn to be more creative. “You’ve either got it or you don’t.” This attitude does a great disservice to everyone. Everyone is creative. So why are some people more creative than others? There are all kinds of reasons. Two reasons stand out above all the others – attitude and skill. In both cases, practice makes perfect. The creative principles and strategies applied in a wide variety of fields can all help you become more creative. You can learn to be more creative. As Micheal Michalko says, “The artist, after all, is not a special kind of person; every person is a special kind of artist.”
Read to my Creativity Downloads here.
Listen to my Creativity Tips here.
Learn about my workshop Illuminating Creativity here.
Each issue of my free enews Insights offers creativity tips. Get Insights here.