Projects, Sketches, Drafts

In his Vision is Better 2 ebook, duChemin writes about projects and creativity. In the article Begin Again he says something that I personally need to take to (my procrastinating) heart. He is writing about all the “creative” projects that we think up—the ones we put into over stuffed Moleskine notebooks or just fill the recesses of our wandering minds, the ones that we lay awake at night to mull over and over, the ones that constantly nag at our heart as well as our inner eye.    

“Pick a personal project. Perhaps it’s one of many – too many – that you’ve got on little pieces of paper and stored in the “One day I’d like to…” part of your brain. Pick one. Don’t deliberate. Pick one. Now do it. Don’t start tomorrow or next week. Begin now. If it’s a project about coffee shops in your end of town, grab you camera, a 50mm lens and go scout it. Don’t come back until you’ve got some images and a list of shots you want. And a timeline. Stop talk­ing about your great ideas. Make them happen.” 

In Go to the Writers he suggests that photographers are visual people, maybe not all that good with words. He mentions a number of very good books on the creative process written by writers and makes his own recommendations. 

“Creation is almost always messy. Because we are messy. If your plan is to from Point A (no photograph) to Point B (iconic photograph which will define my career and on which I will retire fabulously wealthy) then you’re in for a shock. If there is such a transition at all, it’s from Point A to Point Z. And in between are the shitty first drafts, the sketch images.” 

“I can’t bypass the sketches or crappy first drafts. Those lesser images aren’t in the way of me creating the better work; they are the way of me creating better work. Don’t sabotage your process, wait it out, and in the meantime; give the sketch images their room to be crappy images, let them out, look at them, play with them. Don’t let them discourage you, let them bring you to your better images.”

Vision is Better 2 is available from Craft and Vision