I am working on a new lecture on visual literacy for later in October. As I was reviewing a number of different aspects of language in photography, I occurred to me that we often phrase questions in our creative practice that can impact our approach to our photographs and photography.
As I spent more time thinking about this, I came up with a few phrases that in my opinion could be shifted to cause a difference in your approach to your creative practice.
- What could I do to make this better? This question leads to a conversation that is more about what someone else might do rather than getting to the real root of what we want to know about an image. When we ask this question, we often know that something is off, but we aren’t sure. A more insightful question might be What do you see in this image? What do you feel when you look at this image? What do you think this image is about? All provide more context and boundaries for an answer.
- I wonder what would happen if…If you ever think this, you should go ahead and see what happens in your creative practice. It is at the edge of our wonderment of the possibilities do we discover amazing images and photographic ideas.
- Is it possible? Much like, I wonder, the notion of possibility is something that shouldn’t be dismissed without investigation. The creative life and photography are all about seeing what is possible behind the camera. And, everything is impossible until it is done once.
- I’m sorry. There are a lot of reason that people apologize. Sometimes it is warranted, but in our creative practice, we should be unapologetic about our work. We have something to say and have the universal need to say whatever that is to the world.