8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions

Category: [03] Eyes & Ears

Observation and awareness of the universe as a creative life skill.

Chapter List

  • Tiny Details

    There are so many forms of photography to pursue it would take a year of posts to give each of them their due here—and I’m sure I’d still miss something.

    But if you are stuck for inspiration with a camera in your hand might I suggest you think smaller: personally I have found macro photography immensely interesting.

    The trick to capturing the super-tiny perspectives of the world, of course, is having the right equipment. A dedicated macro lens used to be the only gateway to this world, but many modern smart phones have a respectable macro mode built into them these days. While one is not going to shoot magazine quality pics from such, I’ll be the first to argue that having good enough equipment is often the best way to sample a new hobby or form to see if it piques a deeper interest.

    As for subject matter, the world is filled with tiny things. 

    I have a vast collection of insect photos, but creepy crawlies are hardly the only mini subjects even in nature which is full of textures and tiny twisting tales to reveal to a curious photographer.

    I have often walked for hours looking for a great scene or a landscape worthy of a picture, but pointing a close up lens at ordinary things in my home or own backyard can be a virtual safari when inspiration is otherwise lacking.

    Don’t overlook the tiny details of the world when seeking creative inspiration… sometimes literally.

  • Eyes Ears

    If you were to ask me about the most basic requirements of creativity, I may suggest that observation and awareness of the universe are about as fundamental of a skill as there is.

    We are in the middle of a weird space and time in the timeline of creative pursuit. At no other point in history has the average person been able to have access to so much inspiration, feedback and educational content. Simultaneously, society has fostered these massive generative content engines we often call artificial intelligence and are using them to churn all of that into an output that ranges from the curious and interesting to the negligent and slop-laden. 

    I doubt that there has been a time in history that equals this for the opening of eyes and ears to the complexity of what it means to create.

    And yet I also think that there is very little new—and where new does squeak through the cracks of Xeroxed regurgitation of commercialization and generative language models and social media influence it squeaks through when a person notices something interesting the piques the ineffable nuances of our brains. We observe and think and churn and ponder. And what comes out the other end may be interesting and beautiful. It may be creative. 

    At the heart of all those other things is knowing that what the ghost in the machine can accomplish is now no longer distinguishable from human skill, but that seeing and listening and feeling are a core skill yet uncaptured by an algorithm. 

    Under the category of Eyes & Ears, I’lll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.

  • Fifty Walks

    As I write these posts and use this blog as a weekday creativity exercise I am approaching fifty.

    (Don’t ask me! I don’t know how that happened either. I certainly don’t feel so old.)

    Many of my running friends mark milestones in age with a race distance to match. For me that would me running a fifty kilometre race before I roll over the odometer on my age. It is not necessarily impossible, but as I have informally stepped away from such long races (a post for another blog) it does not seem a good fit. 

    Instead, I have opted to celebrate and commemorate by trying to do fifty walks before I turn fifty.

    Loosely structured, those walks will follow a couple rules: they must be of a certain distance, need to contain something I would consider “exploration” and also they should present me with an opportunity to create. What this will almost always and usually mean is that I will be walking a photo expedition.

    I used to do these photo expeditions, as I called them, quite frequently: camera charged and ready, I would just go out into the suburban wilderness near where I live and snap hundreds of photos. No rules. No restrictions. No checklist. No forcing myself into boxes. Just taking photos for the sheer joy of exploring the craft.

    Some of my best pictures and much of my best learning happened when the only goal was fresh air and having an open mind to opportunity.

    Maybe what I’m really hoping to achieve with rekindling my long walks this summer isn’t so much about the walks but finding fifty opportunities to take photos.