I can’t grip rational leverage on conceptual composites that look like photography but really aren’t, even though they defy any other category and have original photographic components. What are these things?  Common sense says they’re illustrations yet they’re not freehand creations.

On the other hand, I know what feels real.  When I see a photograph I don’t have to speculate about manipulation, my senses care less because they’re consumed by examination and filled with emotion. Once I whiff movement too far from photo-authenticity, I sense too much personal jurisdiction lost over interpretation; I begin to feel as manipulated as the image.

A postcard manipulated or not, is a great souvenir but nothing compared to my family standing near a Paris landmark. When I put my camera between me and my family it transcends mere memento.  If I choose enhancement it loses nothing, yet choices made by another are highly destructive.

Photographic images, pixilated or otherwise need integrity or risk reflecting a downright feeble notion of authenticity; revealing a strong agenda yet one relatively easy to dismiss.

Pulitzer Prize winning Photojournalist Renee Byer tells a powerful story with her images. I don’t care how she captured them.  I don’t care what she did with them post capture – if anything. I easily place my trust in her and the honesty of the message she’s offering.

When is it that we lose this trust? If photography isn’t dealing with hard news and world events don’t hinge on precision, there is more editorial leeway; still there is an instant where manipulation annihilates the story.

Do I like these clever, often funny, conceptual illustrations that use photography tools?  I still haven’t decided whether they are worthy or fade as fast as a Hallmark Card with sloppy wet prose.

“Once the images begin to replace the world, Photography loses much of its reason for being.” – After Photography by Fred Ritchin Director of Pixel Press .

Watch Renee’s presentation and look at the conceptual slide show (above)  and help me out.  Where is the line we know exists; what is lost and what is gained?

TEDx – Tokyo Presentation – “The Story Telling Power of Photography”

Renee Byer – A Mother’s Journey: [via The Pulitzer Prize Website]

With over 20 years of experience in the media industry, Renée C. Byer is an award-winning photographer, designer and picture editor.

She has taken honors from the National Press Photographers Association, Society of News Design, Associated Press, and the Best of the West photo and design contest. She has twice been featured in Photo District News magazine for photo stories while working as a staff photographer at The Sacramento Bee. Most recently in the September 2006 Photojournalism issue for her yearlong story “A Mother’s Journey.”

Her series of photographs on biotechnology titled “Seeds of Doubt” won the Harry Chapin Media Award for World Hunger in Photojournalism in 2005. The series also won first place in the Best of Photojournalism contest sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association.

In 2005 she was awarded the McClatchy President’s Award for her photographs in the “Women at War” series. This was the first time that a Sacramento Bee photojournalist was the sole recipient of the award.

Byer has been a staff photographer at The Sacramento Bee since 2003. Previously she worked at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where her photography was a finalist for a Dart Award for excellence in reporting on victims of violence. Byer is a long-time newspaper photographer who has worked around the country at a number of top dailies.

She recently served on the faculty of the Mountain Workshop for photojournalism sponsored by Western Kentucky University.

Photography at its root is honest.  Its analog legacy is documentary, authenticity, and accuracy.  Digitally transformed, the honesty of image capture is questionable.  Regarding truth, however, photography’s quality has remained unchanged.  Each capture is a story and the storyteller is the purveyor of truth.

Consider the photograph as a frame. It’s a rectangle into which the artist decides what is included.  Ideally, each element in the frame contributes; nothing is irrelevant.  What’s more, it’s the purposeful judgment at the decisive moment of capture that edits the story.  Conceivably, two inches to the left or 5 seconds later and the story has a different moral.

Artists can make pictures, but to take them with the purpose of supplying unfiltered truth is intuitive as though thought is bypassed and feelings drive the moment.  Realistically, however, a story remains the responsibility of the teller and not the medium, the context, or even the events themselves.  We decide where to point the camera.

Photographs can feel more truthful than documentary films because they have lesser opportunities for editing.   Yet in contrast, Robert Capa’s famous “Falling Soldier”, under scrutiny for fabrication, may be just as truthful regardless of a less than honest foundation.  Many great photographers fabricate images prior to capture or post capture so. in the end. truth rests with the photographer not the photograph.

Excusing context or assigning responsibility colors photographs as well.  Those with greater experiences gain a perspective that makes it harder for those without to relate; a soldier returning from war or the photographer covering events outside our routine experiences risk becoming isolated.  Consequently, a storyteller must create an honest yet accessible relationship with the viewer.  They must pry open the receptors of the viewer through emotional connections; make them relate to the un-relatable.

Content is king, yet what’s in front of the camera, how it’s framed, and the decisive moment of capture is what tells a story.  Editing can add power to the delivery while simultaneously altering content hence reducing the truth of a story in unskilled hands.  The compassion of a story teller and the way he seeks excellence rather than pursuing excellent results, is the ultimate truth and power of the photographic medium.  - Bruce DeBoer

[all photography copyright Ryan Lobo]

In his TED presentation, photographer Ryan Lobo shares this remarkable insight and relates a few stories.

via Ryan Lobo’s Portfolio Website:

Ryan Lobo has achieved worldwide visibility through his photography, films, exhibitions and editorial magazine work.  For the last 10 years, Ryan has traveled extensively all over the world to make pictures and films that reflect a high degree of humanism, empathy and sensitivity. He is recognized as one of India’s most respected and well-known photographers.

In 2001, Ryan co-founded Mad Monitor Productions, a film and photo production company based in Bangalore and Washington DC. His films have aired on the National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Channel International, Animal Planet, The Oprah Winfrey Show and PBS among many other networks and Mad Monitor productions” currently manages and produces film and photo expeditions internationally.

His images/writing have been featured in magazines like Outlook traveler, Marie Claire, Elle, Tehelka, Better photography, The Wall Street Journal, GEO magazine, Time Out, National Geographic Magazine, the Boston review, Chimurenga, Onzeweruld, the Wall Street Journal and Glamour magazine amongst others. His art prints have been exhibited all over India and in Europe and he is a photographer with “Tasveeer.”

“Music is the space between the notes” – Claude Debussy

I thought of this quote before discovering someone much more intelligent said it first.  I was at a show listening to bluegrass virtuosos play so fast that it was hard to discern a space between notes.  It made me realize that there was only one interpretation possible.  There were no spaces for me to think or feel anything but the energy of their content.

Allow me to share a favorite quote came from my recent interview with guitar great Will McFarlane:  “It took me 10 years to learn how to play something vaguely interesting and the next 15 learning what to leave out.” Notes give direction but it’s the spaces that allow you to project feeling into a composition.  Odds-on, this is where “less is more” originated.

Spaces give us time to anticipate, but what are those expectations exactly?  Perhaps answers to equations, our soul’s rhythm, or a simple desire to return home, but to be sure, the more we experience, the more we tend to anticipate outcome.  In turn, this leaves room for surprise; the unanticipated conclusion.  Spaces between notes are like the unresolved questions; we search for direction and probe for answers.

Then again, unlike performing arts and film, the studio arts and photography have no external timeline.  The spaces are created by holding back information – we consume the first ten years discovering how, and the next 15 learning what to obscure.

A color photograph taken at eye level and displayed actual size with infinite detail and accuracy for the scene may inspire through technical proficiency, but there is little room for interpretation.  “This is a near exact replica of the scene, isn’t it lifelike?”  A photograph summed up in this way risks being quickly dismissed.

It takes courage to allow others to interpret your work but that is where emotions reside; in the spaces between the notes.  Make a statement then allow space for interpretation; too many answers create myopic works.  Passion is heightened when we find obscured spaces or silence allowing us time to emote; The notes manipulate and the spaces allow feelings.

We can all agree that there is one thing that classical music is not, and that’s myopic.  In this 20 minute TED video Boston Symphony Conductor, Benjamin Zander, teaches us why we love Classical Music.            - Bruce DeBoer

“Everybody loves classical music they just don’t know about it yet.” – Benjamin Zander

via the TED website

Since 1979, Benjamin Zander has been the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. He is known around the world as both a guest conductor and a speaker on leadership — and he’s been known to do both in a single performance. He uses music to help people open their minds and create joyful harmonies that bring out the best in themselves and their colleagues.
His provocative ideas about leadership are rooted in a partnership with Rosamund Stone Zander, with whom he co-wrote The Art of Possibility.
Full Biography

Your frozen mental picture is attached to a narrative.  Dreams feel like movies but the meaningful moment is a photograph in your mind with an ascribed story.  Precise and complete recall isn’t called video graphic memory now is it?

It’s a snapshot not perfectly composed with delicate shadow and highlight detail, yet, you’re emotions are there to support it; memories of smell, touch, and sound embedded in a feeling about the narrative.  It’s a mind frame of your first kiss with a memory of how your eye glasses got in the way and how you felt tentative, exhilarated, transformed, yet clumsy.

They bring us memories, tell us stories and illuminate paradox.  Without our own account we rely on the photographer to fill the narrative void.  Some photos are dismissed and some are arresting; you can take a bad photograph of any scene but at what point does a bad frame become reality well rendered?

Other than the fantastic or the fantastically tragic, nearly every scene is ordinary to someone. The talent of a great photographer is turning an ordinary scene into an arresting photo that helps illustrate a story, as well as doing it on demand regardless of circumstance.   A professional does this all while smiling.         - by Bruce DeBoer

In this TED presentation, David Griffin , photo director for National Geographic, offers examples of what gives talented photographers the ability to make human connections.

“Photography stands up amidst the media onslaught because it emulates how our mind freezes a significant moment”

View more of the Photographers Work featured in this presentation:
Michael (Nick) Nichols, Bruce Dale, Sam Able, Paul Nicklen, Chris Johns, William Albert Allard, David Alan Harvey, David Doubilet, Emory Kristof, Steve McCurry, Jonas Bendiksen, Brian Skerry, Randy Olson, James Nachtwey.

David Griffin’s Biography (via Director’s Pick Blog)

David Griffin is the Director of Photography of National Geographic magazine headquartered in Washington, DC. He is responsible for the overall photographic direction of the magazine, working with a staff of photo editors and photographers from around the globe.

Previously he was the Creative Director of U.S.News & World Report, Design Director of National Geographic Books, Associate Director of Layout & Design at National Geographic magazine. Before magazines David honed his journalistic skills at a number of newspapers: The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hartford Courant, The Everett (Wa.) Herald, and The Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune.

David has been honored by the National Press Photographer Assoc., University of Missouri’s Pictures of the Year competition, Assoc. of Magazine Publishers, Ohio Newspaper Photographer Assoc., the Hearst Collegiate Photojournalism Awards, the Washington Art Directors Club, the Society of Newspaper Design, Print, and Communications Art.

If you’re right brained you’re creative. Scientifically there is some minor legitimacy to the assertion but in practical application it’s metaphoric and a tired one at that. But wait, there’s more.

Jill Bolte Taylor has an astonishing story. At most it will change your perception of how you exist; at least it will make you think about how her research applies to you. If ever there was a “right” person to experience a stroke it was her.

Jill was working at the Harvard Department of Psychiatry as a brain researcher when, during a 4 hour episode one morning, she witnessed the slow deterioration of the left hemisphere of her brain. Was she suddenly hyper-creative because her awareness was entirely right sided? No, not exactly, but her description will sound like you’re favorite spiritual guru or your 60’s friend on an acid trip.

Her stroke took 8 years from which to recover. Asked how she knew when recovery had taken place, she responds, “When I returned to a solid”. One of her remarkable discoveries is that without your left brain there is no longer a concept of self, no boundary that indicates where you begin and end.

Jill Bolte Taylor has one of the most fascinating stories to tell and does so in this TED presentation from 2008. There are additional links below the video including her website, a link to her book: “My Stroke of Insight” and an interview by Charlie Rose on Sept. 4, 2009.

“My Stoke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor
Website Home page and interview by Charlie Rose.

In 1948 America added a future iconic graphic designer to the population.  Paula Scher. Most would recognize her work from her years with CBS and Atlantic Records in the ‘70’s before her move to Time Inc. She later shingled her own design firm – Koppel & Sher and since 1991 has been a design leader at the NYC office of Pentagram Design Consultancy.

Paula Sher is a Hall of Fame designer and Grammy winner (not for singing but album design) – a designer’s designer if you will – who has contributed to the collection of MOMA and the Cooper-Hewitt National design museum.

So now that we’ve established her worth as a design spokes person, you are now free to watch her TED presentation:  Great design is serious (not solemn).

Also, if you want more, below the video box are links to a two part  interview on the influence of NYC on her creative output.

Paula Scher: The Geography of Design (Part 1) Video

Paula Scher: The Geography of Design (Part 2) Video

By my corporate experience, managers are taught that high productivity is found somewhere near the center of a fear > comfort spectrum. The good stuff lives in the middle and employee commitment is more desirable than compliance. The problem is that our instruction to engage employees is faulty. A one size fits all corporate strategy places individualism on a shelf. It’s naturally risk averse. This will be no more evident in the next year than in marketing case studies – marketing ROI is back with a vengeance – but please excuse my digression.

A fear inducing motivation slaughter was no clearer to me than when we experienced a 20% agency layoff. As painful as it was for everyone, it’s probably most painful for productivity because it died a horrible death only to revive slowly – after much nurturing – a couple weeks later. It turns out that fear of being next to go stopped folks in their tracks. Not surprising.

Conversely, those nearly tenured by position where – beyond a doubt – the lowest performers on average. Furthermore, common sense says that to give those folks a raise in reward would offer higher comfort and still lower performance. Comfort sent a strong message that our default state – doing what we know and following it through to customary success – was not worth a moment’s deviation.

Our default is to be risk reluctant and to think things through to a logical end with no deviation from task. We narrow our purpose and use our craftiness to get to the finish line as fast and as free from criticism as possible – we go with what we know when under pressure. Perform with all eyes on you and you’ll do what it takes not to fail, together with relying on a tested formula for success.

Thus is the world of carrots and sticks. Carrots (comfort) and sticks (fear) produce low motivation.

In his TED video presentation, Dan Pink gives an outstanding presentation – argument if you will – for what science asserts truly motivates us. Dan explains that there is a mismatch between what science shows and what business does. Business wants innovation, yet motivates us to be formulaic with a narrow view of problem solving.

Dan shows us that reward in the free economy dulls creative thinking. The if/then rewards program performs well with narrowed focus problems, yet broad creative thinking suffers as a result of conventional rewards. When we use our mechanical skills, higher rewards yield better performance.  However, even rudimentary cognitive skills suffer with even moderate rewards. The highest rewarded group of cognitive thinkers do worst of all.

Then what is our native motivation you may ask? Dan concludes by presenting three areas of motivation:

Autonomy: The urge to direct our own life.

Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters.

Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves.

In short:  “Do it because you like it”

David Carson’s grunge typography in early 90′s Ray Gun Magazine set a style that changed type and page design.  It still feels groundbreaking but nothing like the emotive page explosion we first felt while trying to read those first examples of his work.

In this video from Feb. 2003 (well worth the 20 minutes), he touches on one of my favorite creative topics: the communication of emotion through creativity.  We feel before we think.  Ignore how design, photography, music, art or whatever you create effects the outside world emotionally and your success is an accident.

Making money with creativity generates incredible friction; the two fight for attention and simply refuse to get along.  They rarely even play nice.

It’s nearly impossible to write an introduction to the works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [M.C. for short] in the space of a blog post, but this video will help.

What motivated me to pass this along are these barriers to creative flow: Worry, Anxiety, Boredom, Apathy and the like.  What better way is there to describe the buttons that “creative for money” pushes repeatedly – as though waiting for a stalled elevator – than to suggest these barriers.

The ecstasy of creation is what we’re chasing and what M.C. describes as the Flow experience.  Get back to it by putting away the anxiety if you can. Maybe this will help.

Oh, one more thing: take note how M.C. threw the 10 years of study into the mix.  Do you think Malcom Gladwell ever read M.C.’s work?

In this Video from the TED Conference this year, Author of Eat, Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert has this fun take on the origins of our creativity and a great way to conquer the fear.

Bio from her website:

Elizabeth Gilbert was born in Connecticut in 1969 and was raised on a small family Christmas tree farm.   She is the sister of the young adult novelist Catherine Murdock author of Dairy Queen and The Off Season. Elizabeth went to college in New York City in the early 1990’s, and spent the years after college traveling around the country and the world, working odd jobs, writing short stories and essentially creating what she has referred to as her own MFA program.