Bruce Barnbaum - The Essence of Photography: Seeing and Creativity

The concept that led to the first edition of this book was a photography workshop I had been presenting for several years titled, The Art of Seeing and Creating through the Camera. In many ways this is a scary topic because so many people feel that creativity cannot be taught or learned. That may or may not be trueI doubt that it can be proved or disprovedbut it is a certainty that creativity can be properly promoted or badly squelched. The workshop was designed to promote creativity, and the first edition of The Essence of Photography expanded on those thoughts.

As time went by, it became obvious to me that far more could be put into the book. These were topics that often surfaced during workshops, plus some that came up in essays Ive read about photography, but hadnt been discussed in the first edition. This second edition expands on the thoughts of the first edition, always with the focus on promoting photographic creativity.

How can creativity be promoted or squelched? Perhaps a simple example can clarify this. In elementary school, children draw pictures of their family with crayons. A teacher who is supportive of creativity may look at one of those crayon drawings and ask, Oh, is that your mom, and your dad, and is that your brother or sister... or is that you? This question can encourage creativity on the part of the child. A teacher who squelches creativity may look at the same crayon drawing and ask, Is your family really green?

Now, the child may have chosen a green crayon because he or she liked the color, or it happened to be the first crayon that came out of the box, or perhaps for no reason at all. But the first question encourages the child, whereas the second one implies that the kid did something wrong, something that needs to be addressed and corrected. The second question squelches creativity; the first helps to promote it.

My intent in my Seeing and Creating workshops, and in this book, is to promote good seeing, to promote personal intuition, and to promote creativity. If the workshops and this book actually teach any of those things, so much the better. I won't make the claim that they do, but I'll cling to the hope that they may. I approach those workshops and this book as more of a facilitator than an instructor. I have much to learn about creativity, and that's part of the impetus for the workshops and for this book. Ive always felt that youre either learning or youre dead. I'm continually looking for ways to expand my own creative abilities and to push myself higher up on the learning curve to accomplish that.

In this book I offer no formulas for success in developing creativity because none exist. This book is not meant to be followed in a step-by-step manner, as would be the case with a camera manual or instructional book. Instead, my hope is that the ideas discussed within these pages may stimulate further thought on your part that can lead to new, creative approaches.

Because I have over fifty years of experience in photographydoing my own personal work throughout that entire fifty-year period, and commercial work for the first fifteen years, while also teaching workshops for much of my photographic careerI feel that my experiences and observations hold remarkable lessons that could be useful to others.

Some skeptics may view these experiences as little more than personal anecdotes that have little relevance to anyone but me. I think they go a lot further. Just ask yourself how you learn. You learn from books and lectures, but much of what you learn comes from personal experiences. Therefore, I feel important lessons can be learned from these experiences if they are delved into as more than mere anecdotes, and as experiences that offer lessons not only for me, but also for a far wider audience. I present these experiences throughout the book in hopes that they can be particularly instructive to students of photography.

So, here is what I intend for this book to be about, and what I intend for it not to be about:

1. It's about expressing yourself through photography in a way that is meaningful to you and to others, through imagery that can be lasting.
2. It's about using photography as a visual research laboratory, whether you're using traditional film and a darkroom, digital sensors and computers, a combination of the two, or anything else that can lead to imagery.
3. It's about visual exploration, experimentation, and personal satisfaction.
4. It's about encountering a scenecreated or foundand recognizing the potential for personal expression within it.
5. Its about recognizing what is photographically important to you, and what is not.