Notes on Creativity:

If you aren’t familiar with the ICEDIP Creative Process let me share it briefly here.

I probably learned this in high school or college, and forgot the details, but I know in my work as a design and photography professional that the below is an outline which happens naturally.

Sometimes people like to jump ahead to perspiration without the clarification and evaluation… but don’t.

Let the process flow naturally and you will find your ideas are more successful.

 

I = Inspiration – the idea generation phase, the gathering phase

C = Clarification – the honing in and asking yourself how to utilize the ideas generated

E = Evaluation – review the work in progress and group ideas in order of strength

D = Distillation – choose the best of the best ideas and begin to focus

I = Incubation – walk away and let the ideas marinate in your subconscious

P – Perspiration – work and rework on the idea through multiple drafts until you find the final solution which best represents the initial question which brought you to the creative process

 

The gist of the ICEDIP is to come up with ideas, find one of the better ideas, take a look at it,  let your mind wander, and to perspire (sweat profusely) by putting meat on the ideas bones.

I think my list in the prior post and the ICEDIP list can be melded and mingled.

Read through both and then create your own modus operandi.

Follow a path which helps you thrive.

Creativity isn’t just for artists, photographers, engineers, builders and makers.

It’s for everyone who needs to solve a problem and work on creative solutions.

As a photographer I find that the creative process is part of what helped me define my style of Macro Photography – Macro Expressionism. I spent many years enjoying close-up photography but questioning myself as a photographer because what I personally liked didn’t seem viable in the broader world of popular photography.

In 2012 I wrote a blog post and named my style as Macro Expressionism. It was an off-hand comment about my subject matter but it was something I felt strongly about and would practice from time to time.

For the next 2 years I waffled in relation to my confidence as an abstract photographer – and I questioned the validity of focusing on color field photography and abstract macro photography as a legit subject matter.

But I would Google the term Macro Expressionism from time to time and found that I was the only one with that term out defined. So, I wrote a book this year – a short short book, a treatise & manifesto – to describe where my thoughts had evolved to over the 2 years since I wrote my first blog post.

For me the creative process in relation to Macro Expressionism took several years to solidify enough to write intelligently about it. Since then I have begun to formulate more ideas which put more meat on the bones of the concept.

The next step in the creative process is to publish an expansion of the manifesto and explain the process I use to create my abstract macro photos – my color field photography – my macro expressionism.

 

For more on ICEDIP

Need more inspiration? Brooks Jensen will inspire your work. Pick up one of his books to elevate your photography mind!

Carlin Felder Author Biography