At times, I do wonder where does creativity come from? It stuck for sure when I created Gaming with the Queen, and it was recognized when that image was honored with IE in PPA print competition.
In fact, the Image Excellence achievement was the result of my long relationship with creativity that started with my work as a designer and technique developer for the hair styling industry.
Coming out of Covid in 2022 I reworked an image which was taken in 2018. Lets say it definitely wasn’t award winning. Like a starving dog due to Covid not having any portrait, models, etc. I started working on this old photo thinking perhaps I could take the poorly done, beehive, hairstyle, and enhance it.
Cloning and masking pieces of hair. My six year old nephew came into my office to say hello. He says auntie wow you made a chess piece. Replying. Wow I guess I did.
That day I realized creativity was courting me. Those words from my nephew, out of the mouths of babes. Brought me to a place in my childhood when my father and brother would play chess at the dining room table. I of course was only allowed to watch. The war between them at that board, develop the background of the image. Amazing a woman, a Queen, the strongest smartest, chess piece in the game of chest.
So please let me stress right now, never throw out any of your “not so good” images. Constantly move forward with education . . . always. It could surprise you like it did me with the Gaming with the Queen selection for an Imaging Excellence award.
Even more than the image’s recognition, developing Gaming with the Queen, taught me plenty about the creative process, and what it takes to make the most of it.
It demands that the photographer – or writer, or a painter or sculptor – dig deep into their own creative possibilities, and be patient enough to turn those possibilities into tangible images. That will speak not only to other artists, but to anyone who sees it.
Creativity is always there to court us. It becomes like a dance, each step leading the creative process.
