The Image of the Creator
When God designed us in his image, he designed us to be creators. God is the ultimate creator and so we are image bearers with his creative spirit. I believe that is bedrock truth for each one of us, and yet it has only been in the last couple years that I have identified myself as a creative person.
So what was I for the 35+ years prior? I was a lot of things: athlete, food enthusiast, teacher, husband, father. Not in any of these roles would I have said I was creative…yet looking back now I see the desire to be an artist all along.
Fact is I’ve always been creative, but no one ever told me so. Therefore, I never believed I was, so that part of me wasn’t being intentionally activated. It wasn’t a part of my identity as a person. Now it is and I am beginning to live it out as a practice primarily with photography.
Recently I went out to my studio to take self portraits with the express purpose of being creative. I had no plans really. Didn’t know how long I would be out there, didn’t know what the goal really was. I didn’t know how I would edit. All I knew was just be creative. I ended up spending a few hours out there, listening to podcasts and screwing around.
At one point I felt I was just wasting my time after one lighting scheme proved to be pretty boring. Why am I even doing this? What I’m learning is that you may spend hours finding out what you don’t want to create versus what you do. And that is good information that can only be learned by creating the thing you do not like. My efficiency-minded brain might have called it a waste of time, but from a creative perspective I can see it was absolutely essential.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. -Gen 1:31
I made some images of my most available model (me) using different lighting schemes…but are they good? Who is responsible for making that judgement? In the beginning of time, God created all things and then assessed their value himself, so it is the artist who assigns the value to the artwork they create. Any other way would be incongruous with our own creation.
Looking at my images, there is clearly some objective standards of goodness in these images: they’re properly exposed and in focus for example. That isn’t the metric though.
What I really want to know is do they matter?
I look at each photo and say, “So what?”. Can I get by without this image? Can the world? If the answer is yes, then it doesn’t pass the “good” test for me.
As creatives, if we don’t think it’s good, then ultimately it is not good. If we think it is, it is! The whole world might think it sucks, but if you made it for yourself and believe it has value, then that’s the end of the discussion. You might not be a huge commercial success, but maybe we assign too much value to that anway.
This blog is a sort of confession to my future clients. My mind is pretty blank when we arrive to our shoot. There are a million directions we can go and I believe if I start closing doors before we even begin, our possible creative outcomes dwindle drastically.
I am sure there are photographers out there with clear visions for everything they do, and if that is more comfortable for you then I’m clearly not your ideal photographer. My ideal client wants to put creativity at the forefront.
Of course there are guidelines: I love exemplars and Pinterest boards and all sorts of creative direction. But let’s push towards something new and innovative. Let’s produce a series of images that matter to both of us and not to quit til we get there.
Photo of the aftermath of my self portrait session ⬇️
