Wait. Who is that singing?

I take some pride in my early discovery: At Ribfest 2005, September at Five County Stadium, Zebulon, NC., while there to support the featured band – good friends, great band – and, oh yeah, eat some ribs – surprise – a magnificent voice stopped our tracks dead. Rhiannon Giddens – wow – who is that, and why have we not seen her before?

We got home and I started a search. Turned out Rhiannon was a recent graduate of Oberlin Conservatory now singing fiddle tunes – how curious, how awesome. I fired off an introduction email and began arranging a photo shoot.

Schedules being what they are, it wasn’t until the Carolina Chocolate Drops had formed and were well on their way national attention before we met for a photo session at Stagville Plantation’s Slave Quarters in Durham, NC.

Prairie Home Companion, Grand ol’ Opry, NPR interviews, countless magazine articles, appearance in the film, “The Great Debaters”, and a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album – and 4 years later – I asked Rhiannon if she’d sit with Armand Lenchek and I for a video interview.

Here’s and edited 16 minutes of the 80 she spent answering our creative curiosity:

via Carolina Chocolate Drops website:
This is the story in a nutshell. Rhiannon’s father was a classically-trained singer whose legacy was a warning not to study voice before the age of 16. So Rhiannon waited until she was 16 and set off for choral camp. It was great, so she applied to Oberlin College and took on the deepest part of the classical vocal river, opera. “I did five operas and three main roles,” Rhiannon summarizes, “I got into it pretty hardcore.”

If you’re like me, you ask yourself this way too often. Here’s a good reminder from Maria Schneider of the proper answer:

“The minute you think the past was better, your present is second hand – yourself becomes vintage. It’s OK for cloths, not so great for people.”

I’m not sure there is any better advice for the day. The caution is not paying attention to his follow up advice to use instincts. Using your instincts as a creative person means staying within yourself.

Make sure that every influence you’re connected to is filtered through your unique voice. Perhaps it’s best to keep it inside long enough to forget inspiration’s origin. Use the artifact of influence before it’s time and you’re work is a copy.

Without an original voice – without artistic instincts – you resemble a marketer. Producing what you think will sell; a trend chaser.

While copies are OK, they aren’t quality in the full sense of the word; they’re a lie as soon as you put your name on them. Influences, given time to incubate, are the nutrients of your unique voice. No matter how similar the final result, if you’re honest with yourself, don’t you instinctively know when they’re yours or a copy?

I know I do.

Permission To Suck Manifesto laws applied:

5. Industry best practices are not creative. Best practices are maintenance and benchmarking is linear: this leads to that, variation is less professional. The state of the art didn’t arrive by formula or recipe.

6. Your creativity is about your heart, not their surface. Creativity is your world view filtered through your talent. It’s your passion, experience, expertise, inspiration and your rules that drive you to create wonderful things that you’re destined to hate because they’re not good enough, and others are open to admire because they couldn’t do it.

8. Ideas are like lightning strikes hitting you unaware after you’ve been rubbing a cat balloon on a wool carpet for months.

17. Imagination accelerates in the abstract and slows with tangibility. Daydream, maintain vulnerability, innocence and a sense of wonder so that your creativity stays vigorous.

Leaning into discomfort, it’s what the creative professional does if they plan to be successful. Brene Brown, researcher, storyteller and TED presenter, helps explain why we’re so miserable except for when we do. This is the closest thing to video therapy I’ve witnessed.

Vulnerability and creativity are intertwined. As soon as we learn to be ashamed of our creative selves we need someone protecting our back. Shame is fear; we fear exile once our unique brand of humanity is discovered. Am I worthy of your affection, admiration, respect; venture further along the career path the fear of shame only gets worse.

At its root is permission to suck; overcoming embracing shame and its excruciating vulnerability. “I’m smart enough, I’m good enough and gosh darn it, people like me.” – Stuart Smalley.

You betcha, it’s joke-bait. That’s because shame fundamental to being human – the need for a sense of worthiness – it gives us the courage to lean into discomfort. Our connectiveness to others, our feeling of worthiness, and moreover, our compassion to be kind to ourselves, gives us the courage to be imperfect. In other words: Forgo who you think you should be for the genuine article; the unaffected you.

Brene Brown gives the best TED talk on creativity without talking directly about creativity.  She also has books called “The Gifts of Imperfection” and “I Thought It Was Just Me.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why bother investing more – money, time, energy – on projects than it takes to consume them? Instead, search the collective for marginally unfamiliar mediocre creativity that will conform by meeting salable expectations. Furthermore, it’s easy to conform because the crowd is on your side when no risks are taken.

It was the mid nineteenth century when Ralph Waldo Emerson lectured about creativity being part influence, part interpretation. What happens when the parts aren’t equal? What if influence devastates interpretation?

We’re getting to the answer. Likewise, around this time – mid/late 1800’s – we find the idea of a meme [understandably a concept returning to the dialogue in this century]. The meme is – more or less – a societal component; a style or concept widely deemed worthy of replication.

The 19th and 20th century memes as influencers evolved much like a childhood game of telephone. Remember? Classmates’ whispers yielded a surprising result of imitation and interpretation. This is a creative model, perhaps a thoughtless one but creative none the less.

One very key creative element is the passing of information in a way that keeps it free for interpretation. It may be as simple as an analogy or an imitation of a meme. Yet, concepts and styles that jump from individual to individual, as if crossing a gap, are naturally interpreted, i.e. Emerson finds his balance, and imitation isn’t duplication.

Don’t underestimate the importance of the gap; it’s a creative gap. The individual owns that interpretive space. Influence is the whisper and senses are interpreters escorted by introspective thoughts and emotions.

The internet has thrown Emerson’s balance out of whack. The creative gap is diminishing as analogy loses to duplication; imitation swaps with cloning, analog becomes digital. On occasion the creative gap literally shortens to Ctrl>C:Ctrl>V; no time for interpretation. Generally yet more precisely, the time of creation comes treacherously close to the duration of consumption.

As if performing on a stage, open on-line culture thrives on recognition. In real life, we tell a good joke and it becomes ours. A reasonably obscure joke has no attribution requirements, i.e. we’re the comedian. Netiquette (on-line etiquette) requires more attribution but only one or two levels back. With independent discovery, you get “finder’s credit” as though the creator is your alter ego; you’re a curator of good taste but deserve byline credit.

The Good: Crowd accelerated innovation. TED’s Chris Anderson presents a notable case in his talk about what the internet has done for creativity.

The Bad: An elevation of mediocrity and low expectations. Consumption is massive and fast with low interpretation and high influence that’s homogenizing creativity.

Following our move from analogy into duplication, we structure our creativity to avoid criticism and receive acclaim deserved or not. It has the effect of homogenizing outcome. The courage it takes to introduce disruptive forms comes with too much risk of ridicule. There is more equity in conformity than rebellion.

To meet the requirements of the “mob mentality” [as defined by Jaron Lanier - American computer scientist, musician, composer, visual artist, and author of  “You Are Not A Gadget”] consuming becomes more important than producing. When culture is completely open, creativity is lost.

The individual matters. The individual makes structure out of mush. Jaron Lanier calls it encapsulation: don’t publish until you’re ready. We are the definers; we have an inner life.

As proof, connectivity has created fame without talent; people who are famous for being famous. In turn, mediocrity (and the occasional garbage) lives an implausibly elevated status because mob members fear the consequence of truth; the massively naked emperor. This is a continual theme in today’s politics.

Consider Wikileaks: here we find – counter intuitively -  mob censorship of individual thought. Give me your honest opinion, and it had better not be controversial or disagreeable. Honesty through transparency, but at what cost? Complete openness destroys individuality; individuality is creativity.

Lanier marks a strong difference between the internet and open culture. In this Jaron Lanier talks about the failure of Web2.0 with Aleks Krotoski of The Guardian.

Six months ago I was asked a series of questions for Talent Zoo by writer Sara Barton, here are some of the questions with my answers.  There are over 20 questions, but I’ll post installments updating where necessary.

How did you decide on the title of your blog, Permission to Suck? What’s that about?

The blog “Permission to Suck” has actually been around for 5 or 6 years but it’s only been since August ‘09 that I’ve transformed it into something more comprehensive including original video interviews.

One of my close friends, Will McFarlane, and I regularly discuss our careers as creative professionals – he’s a professional guitarist and I’m a photographer. It surprised us just how many parallels there are between the two creative disciplines.

Early on we were lamenting about how hard it can be to try something new because after a long career there is a tendency to feel as though every new thing has to be a masterpiece.  It feels as though your reputation rides on your next photo or your next song; one false move and you’re discovered for a fraud.  I’m not sure when exactly, but at some point, “what we need is Permission To Suck” was uttered and it stuck.  A few days later I had a blog with that name and a month after that I wrote a 1000 word essay titled Permission To Suck that got some traction.

So, do creatives need permission to suck?

Freedom to fail is the disinfected version but, yes, we need it if we hope to grow professionally. As soon as you default to your “A” game – frequently necessary – creative growth is slowed. As Steven Johnson discussed at length in Where Good Ideas Come From, the “adjacent possible” is virtually ignored in favor of what we know works.

Simultaneous with developing an “A” game you hear leaving your mouth: “well, it’s my style”. Without question, it’s great to have a style but be true, are you creating work to fit a style or is your creativity leaving a wake that has style?

It’s easy to say I’m fearless; I’m pushing myself, but very hard to actually “do” in my opinion.  It’s hard to force oneself to be uncomfortable and accept inevitable failure – which is very uncomfortable by the way – especially for those who work for their food.  It’s easier to go with what you know.

I suppose the key is to keep rowing; move the boat.  Embrace Permission to Suck but through hard work, refuse to suck. If you keep moving it’s still possible to steer the boat and discover Steven Johnson’s adjacent possible.

My all-time favorite article is the “Creative Manifesto.” Can you tell me what inspired it?

Most of what I write echoes personal creative tensions. I get bored with myself easily. It’s as though every 4-5 year I had hit another wall. To be clear, I don’t take this as one of my better traits.

In this case, I started reading about creativity and while everything I read had a good message, it left me wanting. It all sounded so removed from a professional’s reality and the advice, on its face, sounds so pat and easy, whereas to me it felt convoluted and enigmatic, a.k.a Effing hard. I wrote the first draft in 30 minutes; I think I was in a mood. I reread it often so I don’t forget what I promised myself – it’s still hard but the Manifesto breaks it down for me.

Like I said, there is plenty of similar stuff written about creativity, but the PTS manifesto was aimed at professional creatives; those who make art & creativity a career choice. My hope is that it sounds as if you wrote it when a little pissed off at falling victim to your need to create. Besides, it’s trendy to have a manifesto isn’t it?

Listen to this NPR Podcast with Ed Norton and Bruce Springsteen

Fans recognize the brilliant genius of Bruce Springsteen, but I think creative professionals can all relate to the process he describes in this Fresh Air podcast. Springsteen’s motivation and passion informed his style not the reverse.  In my opinion, it is the key to a long career as a professional creative.

“you’re usually motivated by fear … I was afraid of losing myself, it is possible for your talent to be co-opted, and your identity moved and shifted to a place there you weren’t prepared for.” – Bruce Springsteen

In a post titled, “Why Do You Do What You Do; Why Should I Care?” from Oct. 12, I introduced Simon Sinek’s TED talk based on his book: Start with Why.

Frankly, I find his book helpful. Creative Professionals (like me) are caught in a cycle of showing first, what we do, then sometimes, how we do it in an effort to differentiate ourselves from competition. We hope to sell others on our value but can easily forget what value our work has to us personally.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

Call it our passion but if you’re anything like me, it’s mostly taken for granted until discovering a void.  But, if I’m selling my value and forget my “WHY”, then my cause is lost.  Actions without a cause won’t accumulate passionate followers.

Here’s Me Starting with Why

I photograph because I see something with which I want to spend more time and of which I want to make partially mine.  It’s a quest of surprises; I surprise myself when I frame something that stirs my emotion; a feeling much more than a thought. It’s that moment of surprise that makes me want to do it again and again.

Camera in front of my face, I’m bracing for it. I feel it when it’s there and disappointed when it’s not. So potent is the anticipation of the surprise moment that the senses surrounding a shutter release becomes a jolt of electricity as though feeding an addiction. More please. It’s how you know you’re a photographer.  If you don’t feel it, you’re probably not one.

I’m opinionated. My opinion is expressed at the moment I press the shutter. Just like that person on the bus that won’t stop talking about their politics, I’m showing my photographs except you can’t tell me to shut up. My visuals are much more persuasive than my rant. Like passing a car wreck or a promised glimpse of George Clooney, I hope to lure you in.

Simultaneously, at the moment of surprise, I want share my discovery. Post capture it’s the profundity of the find along with the clarity of vision that dictates whether it gets shared or I move on to the next sighting. Can I make you feel my surprise?  Can I draw you into the emotional story?

It’s as simple as seeing an unusual shape, color or texture juxtaposed – or as complex as combining an emotional memory with what is happening in front of the camera as an unusual turn of a story.  It’s what I see and you don’t until I tell you to look.

I look for beauty but not always conventional beauty [I’m not one of those image makers who can capture horrific human failures and long for more].  Found in stories, moments, emotions and character, beauty is that which I want to make mine.

I produce the media for the joy of making. The fine craft of selective lighting, composition, and tonality rewards my personal expression. The making is often the only path to closure.

I work with advertising, design and editorial businesses for the collaborative creative community that surrounds the industry, while at the same time, it’s what allows me to finance deeper exploration. Like a back stage pass to the world, I can often gain access to opportunities unavailable to those outside the business.  -  Bruce DeBoer, Photographer

________________________________________________________

My how and what varies, but the why is remarkably stable.

Care to give it a shot?  It may not be as easy as you think: Why do you do what you do?

We all do it.

Anthony Mason - CBS Sunday Morning

From Sunday Morning’s interview on CBS, “Look around you, if those who have it tougher than you can get on, the least you can do is honor them by doing it yourself.”

Regardless of your opinion about Julian Lennon’s work – musical or photographic – few have been judged harsher than he, not by others and evidently, not by himself. Think about how you might deal with criticism and rejection, then add the pressure of heredity – that is Julian Lennon. He reached great heights before his career’s beginning which translates to a hard fall if he doesn’t validate.

For him, sorting out comparisons means:

“gettin’ on gettin’ on – plow forward. Believe in yourself and plow forward. It’s easy to get overwhelmed; you wonder if you can make it or if you can get through but somehow you do.”

An inwardly facing fight of fear. He’s where he is because of his dad, he’s standing on the shoulders of a giant.

It remains a gauge we all take: do I measure up. Perhaps your water mark is a relation, a well known virtuoso, or a mentor, but more likely it’s an entire market of competitors and your own reputation. You’ll never get past the comparisons.

Extreme pressure and panic; Julian is going to be judged on yet another creative element in his life. Will he pull through if he is rejected? He’s sure to hear: first he thought he was a musician, now he thinks he’s a photographer. It shouldn’t matter but somehow it does.

Julian Lennon’s story is substantially the same as the rest of ours no matter how remarkable his life circumstances have been. There is a transition that happens: Ignorance gives you courage and later on, wisdom gives you permission.

Permission To Suck Manifesto Laws that apply:

6.    Your creativity is about your heart, not their surface. Creativity is your world view filtered through your talent. It’s your passion, experience, expertise, inspiration and your rules that drive you to create wonderful things that you’re destined to hate because they’re not good enough, and others are open to admire because they couldn’t do it.

9.     Everyone is creative but only a select few can deal with the risk of ego crushing rejection that inevitably comes from the direction you least expect.  If your work is worth more to you than the safety of groups or a secure fortune then you’re “a creative”.

10.    That road block was dropped there for a reason; it’s so you learn how to maneuver or to accept the pain of hitting it.  Either way, if you don’t survive the test, it wasn’t worth the trip.

Clichés are born from veneers of understanding and observation.  If you lack empathy for your subject you’re doomed to only shooting hackneyed or trite photographs. Or worse, you get busy mocking your subjects and claiming the lie is extraordinary.  I’ve taken my share of these and I’m fairly certain they won’t endure beyond my wages.

As though you’re acting the expert at a party when you know little about the subject, artists make false statements through sensational imagery but risk less since the image is a piece of reality, i.e. proof that you had a right to the statement. Most deliberate photographs start as an assumption; this is what this person is and how I feel about them.  Naturally the best assumptions are accurate but the finest photographers remain open to expanding on conjecture. They refuse to be defined by clichéd conjecture and thrive on discovery.

Artistic style, that is too much method, can force assumptions. This is the origin of my suspicion regarding pinhole photos in gallery exhibitions or an entire 30+ picture show of those quirky “tilt / shift” photos where everything looks tiny. The photographer’s discovery is easily limited to a technique; they’re lying about something because every subject fit into the “box” of the photographer’s phony revelation that pinhole, tilt/shift photography, or other, adds value to the imagery.  Yes, some lies are bigger than others but eventually all the photos in the collection lose authenticity like a politician changing their long held view to gain votes.

photo of Horton Foote by Keith Carter

I visited the National Portrait Gallery and rediscovered Keith Carter – a photographer I’ve long admired.  I saw his portrait of American Playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote in which Carter limited focus using forward lens tilts. I had forgotten him.  I saw it and mumbled, “there it is”.

Standing close enough to hear a mumble, my wife asked, “there what is”?  I launched into a forgettable monologue about how techniques are often so trendy and misused but sometimes they’re perfect. Keith Carters portrait of Horton Foote was one of those that was perfect.  The technique wasn’t trendy yet; it wasn’t an iPhone app, it was simply a technique honestly used in the process of discovery.

“I don’t think there is any great mystery about the vagarities of making art. We all start out the same way: learn your craft, work hard at trying to be coherent with your pictures, and pay your nickel and take your chance.  The bedrock in a body of work is your subject matter and how you relate to it. If you have empathy and care about your subject matter, then discoveries, deeper meanings, and understanding have a greater chance of evolving from that work. Sometimes you just have to get butt-naked.” – Keith Carter [via Calumet Photographer Spotlight]

[[Show as slideshow]]
All photos in slide show by Keith Carter

More on Keith Carter here.

• From Uncertain To Blue (1988)
• The Blue Man (1990)
• Mojo (1992) ISBN 978-0-89263-335-7
• Heaven of Animals (1995)
• Bones (1996) ISBN 978-0-8118-1282-5
• Keith Carter Photographs — 25 Years (1997) ISBN 978-0-292-71195-2
• Holding Venus (2000) ISBN 978-1-892041-24-1
• Ezekiel’s Horse (2000) ISBN 978-0-292-71229-4
• Two Spirits: Keith Carter and Mauro Fiorese (2002) ISBN 9788837020170
• Opera Nuda (2006) ISBN 978-1-888899-25-2
• “Dream of A PLACE of Dreams” (with Mauro Fiorese) (2008) ISBN 9788890202377
• A Certain Alchemy (2008) ISBN 978-0-292-71908-8
• Fireflies: Photographs of Children (2009) ISBN 029272182X

Keith Carter Biography [via his website]

Keith Carter is an internationally recognized photographer and educator. Born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1948,he holds the endowed Walles Chair of Art at Lamar University Beaumont, Texas. He is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Regional Survey Grants and the Lange-Taylor Prize from The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. In 1997 Keith Carter was the subject of an arts profile on the national network television show, CBS Sunday Morning. In 1998, he received Lamar University’s highest teaching honor, the University Professor Award, and he was named the Lamar University Distinguished Lecturer.

By The Way – in case you didn’t know :

Tilt Shift is not an iPhone app – ok, it is – but that’s not its origin and neither is the look of altering the plane of focus something native to Photoshop.

If you’re a serious photographer using the technique but don’t recognize the name Theodor Scheimpflug or understand the significance of lens nodal points, here’s a starting point:

Theodor Scheimpflug (1865-1911) stated that; ‘when the extended lines from the lens plane, the object plane and the film plane intersect at the same point, the entire subject plane is in focus.’

I owe my knowledge and practice to my college text that I first cracked in 1976 and still recommend for those interested in knowing more: View Camera Techniques by Leslie D. Stroebel.

Narratives about what we see are fundamental to good photography. Capturing what we see in a deliberately composed frame adds a well examined viewpoint and inculcates ideas and emotions into what we see in the photograph. It changes the narrative but doesn’t eliminate discussion.

This is where it begins; the 1000 words theoretically embedded in every photo. Art and photography depends on language translation. The narration begins in our heads as we create. Just as music rises above its mathematical roots, imagery is descriptive.

Beyond “that’s nice” a good photograph excites curiosity, inspires imagination, and invites empathic exchange. How do we know it’s beyond a nice photograph? “Beyond nice” translates into language without straining our vocabulary.

Good art students learn through classroom discussion to translate the visual into language. We learn to ask ourselves the right questions. What was I feeling at moment of capture? Why did I make that frame that way? What am I feeling while viewing the finished photo? What changes would increase the volume of that feeling? Is the volume loud enough to reach an audience? And so on.

Motivated by massive frame numbers, a competitive market, and an incessantly starved ego, among other things, our nuanced talk begins to morph into criticism. Criticism breeds authority; influence embodies itself while meaningful relevant discussion corrodes erodes.

What is an expert? “Unless you’re an academic” – I’ve read like phrases repeatedly in reference to art writing. In your face academia, I’m an expert by default; by working in the field for 30 years post relevant college degree. Furthermore, so is every vaguely accomplished human who’s learned to translate visual to language despite published pedigree.

Art criticism has a few inherent problems. It’s irrelevant to most everyone but the critic and those interested in assigning material value, plus, it’s inwardly focused. Critics talk to other critics in some “other” vernacular. At best it’s readable and at its worst, comedy bait.

The value of most expert criticism to the artist is minimal if not destructive. Divide art discussion into two piles: 1) What you know 2) What you think you know, and you’ll find one pile much larger than the other. The challenge is that the latter is typically presented with more authority than the former.

What we know belongs to the artist and viewer but involves no speculation.

The Artist: I know why I made this photograph and listen as I describe why it’s important to me and what I hope viewers take from it.

The Viewer: This is what it makes me feel, how it’s changed me, and why I find it important.

The Historian: This body of work has changed the way people respond to (insert subject here) . It is evident for these reasons and through these examples, and influenced the art era in these ways.

The Critic: This is why this photo will be important to society. Listen as I describe why art endures in the historic body of collected works; this is why it’s a collectible piece. This is how it should make you feel and why this body of work has overestimated value.

Bruce DeBoer - post author

Tell the difference? Undeniably, there is room for intellectual discussion about art. In fact, I enjoy it.  The challenge, in my opinion, is to keep it relevant to viewers, artists, and historians while at the same time rejecting speculators. Speculators are non-value adding to the process.  They are typically outsiders offering “expert” opinions about speculative artistic value. They wallow in the pile of “what we think we know” beyond nice.

Similar posts with alternative viewpoints:

How We Talk About Photography – Asad Haider

We Need Better Critical Writing about Photography – Joerg Colberg

Conscientiously Full of Myself – Art is Hard