Creative November Challenge Day #1: The Goal

When I first started jotting down ideas for Creative November posts and photographs, I realized I wasn't entirely sure what I meant by "creative".

According to one definition I found, "creative writing" is writing that displays imagination or invention, in contrast to academic or journalistic writing. However, it strikes me the distinction between them isn't so easily drawn in the real world. Good academic and journalistic writing also displays imagination and invention - in the choices writers make to establish the style, focus and tone of the piece, if nothing else. The best of it ignites imaginations and touches hearts in the same way good fiction does.

It seems to me writing creatively has a lot to do with a writer's intention. Is she trying to do something more than recite facts or explain technical details? Does she aspire to write beautiful prose, connect with her senses, or paint pictures in the reader's mind? Does she hope her work will have an emotional, spiritual or psychological impact?

Writing creatively also involves making space for reflection - for figuring out the how and why, as well as the what, of a piece.  Like many people, I create stuff because it helps me connect more deeply with other people, the world around me, and my sense of who I am at some fundamental level.

The distinction between creative and journalistic photography may be much the same, but it strikes me as more difficult to draw at times.

With today's technology, good images are easier than ever to produce. Pretty pictures can be made with basic gear and the bare minimum of imagination and invention - particularly, if the photographer is content to rely on technology and make virtually the same images over and over again.

By contrast, a photographer who approaches her work with intention, taking time to consider the story she's telling, the impact she aspires to make, the experience she and others have in the course of making an image - in addition to the aesthetic qualities of the final work photograph - is engaged in a process that seems more genuinely creative.

Over the next month, I hope to exercise creative muscles in both mediums, though I expect the results will very often tend towards the journalistic - this post being a case in point. Whatever the outcome, my goal is to take the time to be thoughtful about the words I write and the images I make, to reconnect with my senses, to learn new things, and to produce stuff that matters to me, if no one else.

Onward.