10,000 Hours

I was listening to the CBC radio recently. It’s a show called Ideas with Paul Kennedy. He was discussing the theory of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success. Where it states that you must put in 10,000 hours of practice to become a world-class expert in anything. This does not explain my pitiful guitar playing. I have put in at least 10,000 hours over the past 40 years and still can’t play like Eric Clapton. Oh well. I do feel I have obtained a certain level of photographic expertise. But my skill level changes at a much slower rate these days. I guess now it’s more a matter of practicing my craft and pushing myself to keep growing, however subtle the changes may be.

Light Reflections - Click for larger

Some of Gladwell’s elements of success are:

• Working harder than everyone else.
  
• Noticing things that others don't.
  
• Understanding your place in society.
  

So if you put in 10,000 hours, will you be one of the best? Clearly if I go back to my guitar skills this is not the case. If I trained for 10,000 hours, I would still not be a world-class runner. It isn't in the cards. So what’s the secret to success? Hard work? Talent and luck? Probably these are some of the ingredients. I’m sure there are many people at the genius level that have not achieved success. I’m not sure I buy into the whole IQ thing anyway. I think it's such a small measure of overall intelligence. I have been around some very smart people who can’t really function in our society. Genius can sometimes border on madness. The most successful people I know are the ones that didn’t give up. They are forever curious and have a bucket of passion for what they do.

Capelin Weather - Click for larger

We had Nigel Dickson in to talk to our students recently and he mentioned the 10,000 hour theory. He has obviously put in his time and is one of the most creative photographers I know. But he felt it was easier to become successful when he started. He did say though that he put in many 18 hour days and loved every minute of it. He said passion is one of the most important factors. He also said, "The cream rises to the top, and then it goes off a little". Clever man…

Theories are one thing but there is a magical side to success. It’s not just hard work, it’s so much more.

Canoe on Georgian Bay - Click for larger

So you want to be a rock and roll star, a photographer, an artist? Put in your time and as my Dad always said, “You make your luck”.

Inspiration

It comes from everywhere. I get my inspiration from the people and things around me. It’s so nice to be surrounded by talented creative people. When I see my students' and colleagues' work, I get excited. They push me to try new things through their work and their words.

A former teaching assistant and now friend dropped by the campus to take me out to lunch. Aizick and I always have great conversations about photography and all things digital. We learn from each other every time we are together. During our conversation, he said, "You must get a few students that come into your class with the attitude that they already know it all". I'm paraphrasing here but it was along that line. Sure, some people let their egos get in the way. I guess I too have been guilty of that at times! We continued our conversation and I said, "You know, I can learn just as much from my students as they learn from me". Regardless if someone has been working with Photoshop for 10 minutes or ten years, I can learn from them. The way they approach a problem. The way they see. Their process is always fascinating to me.

Things have been a little stressful and busy of late but I have been shooting a little when time permits. It's nice to get back to the camera and the computer. In this post I would like to share with you some of the images I have produced lately that were inspired by people around me.

Dimitri, one of my 4th semester students showed me a great location for shooting the skyline of Toronto. I have returned to this location a few times since. Here is one of my favourite images from this spot:A couple of weeks after I shot the above image, I returned to the same location with Dimitri, Ray and Marlee. We all shot our own thing. We shot from very different angles, each with our own vision. Ray showed me one of his images and how he processed it and his looked as if he was in a totally different place. So I re-processed one of my images with inspiration from him:Sydney, another one of my 4th semester students dropped by to show me some of his images. He was a bit down, not quite sure of the talent that is flowing out of him in all directions. I'm not sure my words were inspiring to him, but his work was to me. His work is so different, so oddly beautiful. Here is one of my images of my friend Fred (click to see original) re-worked a la Sydney:I can't leave out Carina. She has been working very hard to produce some food images for her final portfolio and is making great progress. Carina inspired me to take this image:One of my 1st semester students sent me an image he submitted for his creativity course. It was a panoramic image, reworked as a spherical panoramic. I asked Sam how he did it. My version is nowhere near as good as his but I will do a bit more of this kind of thing and see what I come up with. Here is my before and after version:
Ah, it's spring. I feel like hitting the road and exploding with creativity! Can't wait to get back out there…

Creativity - Where Does it Come From?

Ideas for images come to me in the night. They come to me while I'm driving somewhere or doing something other than photography. Where does creativity come from? I'm not sure anyone knows. It comes through me and from me and when I least expect it. It's not something I can force or control. Sometimes I get a great idea when I'm stressed and under pressure, or sometimes when I'm bored and navel gazing. Whatever it is, it's the most wonderful feeling when you complete the cycle of a creative idea: capturing the image and then finally showing it. I hope to share with you through this blog, my creative journey.

Cape Spear Old Lighthouse (Digital Composite)

One fall I was under pressure to come up with an idea for an Xmas card. At the time, I was teaching image compositing at Seneca and was working on a class demonstration to turn a daylight image into night. The image was the old non-working lighthouse at Cape Spear in Newfoundland. I had just finished the image, complete with lights on, when this Xmas card crisis hit. The problem with using the lighthouse was that it was photographed in June. A winter image was needed. I looked for a snow scene with the light coming from the same direction as the lighthouse and found an image of snow drifts and grass from Manitoulin Island. I blended in this image but something was still missing. I needed a strong light source. For this I added a moon image from Northern Ontario. The final step was to add a blue tone to make it look like a cold night. It took about 48 seconds to come up with the idea but the whole process to create the image composite took about 48 hours. This was one of the first images we had posted with Getty.