Articles Tagged with: creativity

Transitions

Wow – The last you heard from me on the blog I was selling off a bunch of gear, and then… Nothing.

If I wasn’t me and I saw that happen to another professional, I’d think that they gave up and closed shop.

2014 was my best year in the photography business yet, but by the end of it I didn’t appreciate that fact at all. I realized that the sole reason I got into photography was to be creative, and I started to become bitter at a lot of the business side of things. I already run a very busy consulting business and I was burning the candle at both ends. I hired staff to run my other business so I can focus on being more creative, but guess what? I ended up managing those people, which took up even more of my time.

I also began resenting requests to recreate what clients saw on social media from other photographers. I couldn’t help but think “Why don’t you find the person who shot that and hire them instead?” Combine that resentment with people contacting me for jobs and saying things like “I love your work but I don’t want to spend a lot of money” or the constant requests for usage with no compensation.

It’s more than enough to make someone walk away.

But I’m not walking away. I’m transitioning my focus.

I’ve been saying no a lot. Not to jobs that make me nervous, but to jobs that I’ve tried before and realized are not for me. It’s not about what I’m good at, it’s about what I love doing. If I’m not loving the work, there’s no point in doing it.

I don’t want to capture templates of life.

I wan’t to capture real moments and authentic emotions.

You know, actual life.

Furthermore, I want to create. But how do you create something using real life? Once I direct a subject, or manipulate a scene, aren’t I manufacturing reality and creating something that wasn’t there naturally? How the hell do I interpret a real emotion or moment and make something out of it without betraying the authenticity of the medium?

I just don’t know.

But I’ve got to ask myself, do I even care about the authenticity of the medium in that way anymore?

I do care about capturing life. I do care about making art. So I began focusing heavily on something else while looking for answers.

I found a group of artists from all walks of life, both amateur and professional, who attend drawing from life sessions at different locations in the area every week. I tried doing something I’d never done before – Drawing live models. The focus on drawing a timed sketch of a human is not on the exact realistic representation of the model. It’s about the gesture. It’s about the body language. The essence of the subject is more important than anything else.

I really liked this one tonight - Mary at #TheArtistsLoft in #MountPleasant

15 minute #sketch #FigureDrawing #graphite #fabercastell #livemodel

Pastel #FigureDrawing from life #20Minutes

Like photography, technique comes into play. There are also tools of the trade (although pencils and paper are pretty accessible in comparison to lenses and lights). I do find myself “geeking out” over a brand of pencils or a type of paper. It’s part of who I am. Give me too many pencils and I’ll stress out over which thickness is best for whatever I’m drawing. It’s just like packing too many lenses for a job. I make better work when I limit myself (I hope that sinks in one day). The gear is all a noisy distraction.

I also started to practice drawing from photos again. When there’s more time to draw, I find that the muscle memory of drawing gesture from a live model is taking over first. Once I realize that I have time to relax, I’m able to focus on the technique again. The more I practice both drawing live models and from reference photos, the better I’ll be equipped to capture both gesture and accuracy without even thinking about it.

Here’s a pastel drawing I recently made from a reference photo:

Trying a different medium tonight. #Pastel #FigureDrawing #PhotoReference #fabercastell #Strathmore #Female #Nude

This is a piece I made for my wife using a photo I took years ago as a reference:

Pastel Elephant Drawing for Amy by Joseph W. Nienstedt

So, what does this all mean?

What I’m looking to create photographically and through drawing and painting is starting to come a little more into focus for me.

I know I want authenticity, but not technical authenticity.
I want emotional authenticity.

But how do I achieve that? I guess the simplest way is for me to believe it first. I have to believe the image. If I know I’m not being genuine, then chances are everyone else knows too. I’m a terrible liar anyway. The challenge is to take that authentic gesture, or emotion, or general essence of whatever I’m trying to capture and use my technical skill to push the envelope. I need to marry the real with the surreal but not force it.

So while all of this is swimming in my head and weighing on my heart, I happened to catch a very inspiring talk at The Citadel last night by an artist and gallery owner named Robert Lange.

As he told his story and talked about his craft, I was mesmerized. Here’s a guy who’s clearly gone through all of this shit already and is still struggling with identifying himself to himself. I know it’s not necessarily news to most people that artists don’t tend to settle, but the honesty he used in conveying that was enlightening.

He reflected on his college years and how he worked harder than anyone in his classes – Staying up all hours working on his paintings and making work that looked exactly like his subjects, and when it was time for a critique from working artists, they all told him that art wasn’t for him. They said he lacked soul in his work. So, feeling dejected, he decided make paintings of his puppy and his fiancée because he genuinely loved them and they made him feel good about life. Lo and behold, when the artists saw these new paintings, they praised his work. They could see his passion through his brush strokes – He just needed to paint what he truly cared about.

He showed us the different bodies of work that he’s created, and his natural progression of creativity covers 15 years of artwork. 15 years is a long time, but it’s also a blink of an eye. It’s easy to download a band’s whole catalog of music, or see an artists whole portfolio of work and get discouraged. We get this instant gratification but lose the sense of time that went into creating that work. We immediately think “I’m nowhere near as talented as that guy” and put down our camera/guitar/paint brush in disgust.

There’s something missing in conveying that time in the creative world. The journey is just as important, if not more important than the work for an artist. In the end though, the work is what lives on. It’s sad until I think of the current popular culture of people being famous for being famous. When they die, there’s no work to show for their fame so their fame dies with them.

During Robert’s talk, he mentioned that photographers should take as many portraits of strangers as possible. He does that to capture people off guard and being themselves. If he uses their portrait to create a painting, he sends them a print of that painting. They have no idea that he’s going to do that either, so there’s no pretense to it for them – I imagine that they’re just signing what amounts to being a photo release and then months later a print of a stunning piece of artwork shows up at their door.

After his talk, I ran to my car and grabbed my camera. I decided as the talk came to a close that I would take his portrait. Who knows, maybe I’ll make a painting of it one day…

Very inspiring talk from @paintdifferent of @RobertLangeStudios at #BehindTheLens tonight at #TheCitadel - I took his portrait when he was done #CHS #CHSArt

So, what exactly is it that I’m transitioning my creative focus to?

I’ll let you know when I find out.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy capturing the search.

Thanks for reading.

-Joe

What I Want For Christmas…

This morning I had a very meaningful conversation with my wife. The last time I had a conversation with her like this was over five years ago. Shortly after that conversation, I started Charleston Tech Support. This time, Amy is convincing me to go pro already with my photography and to stop pussy-footing around with my many excuses. This morning I told her that I still needed more experience. She of course said the magic words, “You will always be striving to be better, that will never stop”. She’s right.

I told her that I still feel like I’m developing my own style. I want to have my own voice. I want people to look at a photo I made and say, “That looks like a Nienstedt shot”. I want to find that unique signature that makes me me. The reality is that it’s already there. We all have our own unique voice buried in our soul. The trick is to trim down the distractions that are obscuring it. This involves peeling back the layers of your subconscious mind and listening to what your voice is saying.

Day 319 - Modest Mouse at the Music Farm

So I’ve been listening to my inner voice real hard and it’s been telling me a couple of things. The first is that I love shooting people now more than ever. I recently wrote an article about it, because it intimidated me at first. Now, I find it absolutely inspiring. Making a photo is one thing, but making a human connection is, to me, a much bigger thing. The other thing my voice is telling me is that I love music. Actually, it shouts that one pretty loudly.

Less Than Jake At The Music Farm 6.11.2010

So, after doing the math, it is obvious that my voice wants me to shoot creative people. I love to write about creativity. I love to create. I love the process. I love the feeling of that moment of zen when you get into the zone of creation. I also like to connect with creatives. With that said, my vision for my work is based on capturing creativity.

My signature is still a bit harder to define – that comes with the maturing of my technique. I realize that if I pursue my vision, the signature will define itself as long as I don’t consciously take on the styles of the artists that I admire. That’s a tough thing to avoid because we take in so much unconsciously that it’s hard not to mimic something that your mind has absorbed from all of your creative inputs.

I can no longer put off my aspirations because I don’t feel like I’ve established myself enough yet. That’s just silly. Going back to what Amy said about never being satisfied, I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable with whatever style I’m embracing at the moment – it will always morph into something else. The second record I put out with my band back in the day sounded nothing like the first record. In music, people are less forgiving of that kind of change, which is why so many bands suffer from the “sophomore slump” and probably why it was somewhat easy for me to walk away from it all. I wasn’t feeling what people expected from my band anymore. On the other hand, with photography and fine art, I think people expect you to grow artistically.

The photos I’m sharing with you are some of my favorite shots I’ve made at some of the shows that I’ve attended in recent years. Up at the top is Bryan from the Bouncing Souls, followed by Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse, Buddy from the punk-ska band Less Than Jake, an overhead shot of the Gaslight Anthem with a focus on their set list, a close-up of Robert Randolph, and below is a shot of the band Weston. These are a good representation of where I’ve been within regards to shooting music, but I want to expand on it more. I think these all capture a specific moment during their performances, and I want to further define those. I need to put myself into position to capture that moment when an artist and/or their fans enter that zen state and is completely one with creativity.

So, what do I want for Christmas this year? I want to put it out there that I want to creatively capture creativity. I want everyone who’s reading this to pass it on to someone who might be able to facilitate that need. If you’re a musician, or a painter, a dancer, a chef, an actor, a writer, a comedian, or if you know somebody who creates anything, then I want to capture it. I want to be hired to document the moment that something is made and the people involved in making it. If you know art directors, agents, designers, or anybody who is looking for photographic services please point them to this blog. I’m very serious about this and will not sit around just waiting for someone to hand me an assignment, but I believe in the power of putting yourself and your goals out there. Not in a “The Secret” type of mystical way, but in a spread the word enough so that the right person will hear it type of way.

Thanks for reading this – I’ve been trying really hard to define where I am on this journey for a long time. I have written about going pro recently, and the more I explore it here on this blog and with my camera, the clearer the map to my next destination becomes.

Art Is Hard

A couple of weeks ago my daughter picked out a cupcake costume at the costume shop. Unfortunately, it was way too small and they were sold out of the larger sizes. No problem, we thought – we’ll just find it online. Little did we know that this particular costume is a new item and is very hot this year. We couldn’t find it anywhere (with the exception of eBay where people are selling it for about 3x the list price). So, knowing that my daughter had her heart set on this costume, my wife became determined to make one even better than the store-bought version she couldn’t have.

She started out by Googling cupcake costumes looking for ideas. The results she found were less than desirable to say the least. She decided to go to the local hardware store and browse around with the hopes that a light bulb might go off in her head and a solution would come to her. She came home that night with a couple of pieces of PVC tubing, spray paint, and some poster board. Pretty soon she had constructed what looked like an upside-down pink lampshade. I took two dog leashes and made a pair of suspenders out of them and we had the cup portion of the cupcake.

The really tough part was figuring out the icing top. After a few days of going back and forth, my wife decided to use poly-fill at the icing. Unfortunately, there was no easy way to attach it. We thought about getting a giant over-sized shirt and gluing the fill onto it, but it would have looked more like a mess than a scrumptious treat. Then I had an idea to mimic our favorite cupcake shop in Charleston, appropriately called “Cupcake”, who uses really thick icing in a giant swirl to top off their cupcakes. We could use quilt batting and sew it into a tube stuffed with the poly-fill and twist it around my daughters body, just like a cupcake from Cupcake!

After another trip to the store to get some hot glue sticks, yarn, and a giant sewing needle to assemble the icing so that it would stay put, my wife managed to make what looked like a giant pastry! We glued little colored pom-poms to the icing to look like sprinkles, and then my daughter made one big pom-pom into a cherry that she glued to a headband as the finishing touch to her pink wig. This is the final result:

She got to show it off for her Girl Scout troop this evening at their Halloween party and she won the prize for cutest costume! Surprisingly, the costume is still in tact for next weekend. My wife should be proud of what she made for my daughter, because it is so much better than what had inspired it in the first place. It took a lot of hard work and determination, a few curse words, and a couple or bloody fingers. The same is true in any artistic endeavor – if you don’t go out there and do something, even if you know it will be really hard, nothing will ever happen for you, which is even harder to deal with in the long run.