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Inspiration Essay on Luminous-landscape

Alain Briot

pro member
Michael Reichmann published the first of a series of 4 essays on the creative process this past week. It is available at this link:

http://luminous-landscape.com/columns/Finding-Inspiration.shtml

The title of this first essay is Finding Inspiration. The series continues with the next three essays as follows:

1 - Finding Inspiration (published on Luminous-Landscape)
2 - Exercising Creativity (available on my site)
3 - Developing your Vision (to be published later this month)
4 - Achieving your personal Style (will be published next month)

This series of essays are also avaiable on my site.
 
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You are obviously not referring to the process by which the lungs take in air or other substances on occaison. <grins>

An interesting article that leads me to a question.

Are you inspired by yourself Alain?

I find inspiration in the way I live, in the décor of my home, the landscaping of my garden, the cars I drive, the clothes I wear....
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Folks,

Lets keep the discussion to the text of the quoted article. If you have n't read it, then read it before commenting. Alain Briot is a personality. He has trained in prestigious institutions and has taken this to a level where he runs a good business which prospers based on a cadre of people who love his way of doing things.

Of course, this world may not be for you or I or uncle Joe, however it is a way. There are those who eagerly wait for his "Print of the Month" and order it and the DVD's. Yes this is self promotion, but one could say, who else will do it for the commerical Art teacher and artist. I could answer that, but that's not my current point.

See if one can find good points in Alain's free writings, let us know! That's always the start. Is there anything worth eating in the food basket?

Good critique is an analysis. It frames the content with the purpose and shows what is of value and what isn't, what is presented well and what could be better explained. That would be of great use to this forum.

We host information to Alain's and anyone elses bona fide education materials and courses. I plan to put more there. Where I have reviewed the material I will give my view. I have done that with the Summit, which is run with Uwe Steinmueller and is well worth joining.

No promotion is allowed by anyone in posts. Information should be handled by the Moderators or myself so that the news is posted impartially. We are trying to keep a balance that benefits and protects everyone. If you make prints, have a real honest service, let me know, we'd love to support you at no charge. Here we have an opportunity to excercise our freedom of speech to look at other people's work in the context of what is worthwhile and what isn't. That's what we must do here. We can't give anyone, myself included, a free pass. Otherwise we'll all say a picture is great, and no one will learn a damn thing.

A better approach is to recognize the effort of the person, note the good points and then, when you have credit, define what you think it lacks. That's fair and useful. Alain has been criticized for charging $975 for a DVD while here his essays are free. I have no idea whether the DVD's are worth that to most people as I have not seen them and can't afford to find out. However, the free essays are there to be looked at. We must be open and honest, but also balanced!

Asher

Georg this is not meant to single you out alone. Your post however is a good excuse to discuss this important point. OPF is distinguised by being open, kind and ruthelssly honest. Tough, but a good goal. No, I'm not going soft, just checking how the 'plane is flying which a good captain has to do every so often!
 
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Jack_Flesher

New member
OPF is distinguised by being open, kind and ruthelssly honest.

I have a question...

Unfortunately, sometimes -- perhaps even often -- the attributes of being ruthlessly honest and open are at direct odds with being kind --- at least within the western paradigm of communication... May we assume Asher that you are implying the latter trait should always outweigh the others here, regardless?

Cheers,
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Not to be a boor here, but...

I generally jump at the opportunity to read essays on creativity, and the art and practice of photography. I've read Alain's previous and current LL essays which feature some interesting ideas.

For my money, however, Brooks Jensen's Lenswork books remain peerless for both practical and philosophical insights for the amateur photographer. I nearly always have one of these with me when I'm traveling. For their rich value, however, they're a damn bit less costly ($12.95) than Alain's DVDs.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I have a question...

Unfortunately, sometimes -- perhaps even often -- the attributes of being ruthlessly honest and open are at direct odds with being kind --- at least within the western paradigm of communication... May we assume Asher that you are implying the latter trait should always outweigh the others here, regardless?Cheers,
If one reviews the M8 and it makes people clothes purple, creates green blobs and lines and not report it because one is considerate to the MFRS, that is wrong. If one reads a submitted essay one can couch a rejection kindly. These are easier to judge what to do.

Here we can nuance, by moving a post, suggesting privately that the person has better pictures or other kind face-saving consideration. If, however, one is dealing with hucksterism or fraud, then one takes it on. I only comment on material I know about. I support the Videos by Frank Doorhof, The Educational Summit Retreat of Uwe Steinmueller and Alan Briot for Example and the Trips to Puerto Rico by Don Cohen because I do know enough to believe in them and their value.

All other materials within reason are merely announced in "Uptown" where you can talk risky subjects, buy a bargain or get Educational Material, all at your own risk.

Push comes to shove, honesty and truth trumps kindness. except when talking about people looks! That's posts, pictures or stuff for sale! I make a note of any complaints and if they are impressive, I am forced to take action. OPF has to have faith that what is being offered is real. Now if this is abused and we learn about it then that will be dealt with immediately.

Still don't we have a right to sell our work for whatever we feel we are worth? It's tough because someone might be willing to pay $200 for an 8x10 print that I think is worthless!

Having ideas on what is tolerated or not is great in theory. That applies to people comments and what is being commented on. Nicolas and I felt that the open debate of a community will self-balance. In practice, there's no book of rules. We learn!
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Ken,

You can get a book of many of Alain's _free_ LL essays for a pretty reasonable price. It is not a like for like comparision, comparing a book to a dvd.

Parts of the essay referred to, I found very interesting. However, I have inspiration by the ton, but not much motivation. Hopefully I will 'snap out of it'.

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Jack_Flesher

New member
Thanks for the clarification Asher! I tend toward open and honest and think this can be translated to one being considered "direct". That said, my own personal experience has been that most folks have pretty thin skin -- as such, being direct tends to offend (the recipient) more often than it is perceived as being helpful or constructive...

My .02 only,
 

Ray West

New member
Hi Jack,

That's the trouble with engineers. We look at the message, couldn't care a sh*t for the messenger ;-)

Best wishes,

Ray
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Parts of the essay referred to, I found very interesting. However, I have inspiration by the ton, but not much motivation. Hopefully I will 'snap out of it'.
Ray, you're ight on!

Everey child, interesting person, branch lit from the side and its shadow, a rusted wrecks, a bird, all these are everywhere to to set off "inspiration".

As you say, motivation is another thing entirely.

Inspirations are like ideas for a novel are a dime a dozen (or in Europe, Euro 0.75 a dozen!

Asher
 
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Ray West

New member
Hi Asher,

But not everybody has inspiration for anything. For those of us who do, its almost like on a runaway train, or whatever. My motivation (lack of) is wrt photography, its been sort of run aground in a backwater for the last few months. I used to, still do, design, build machines, etc. Folk used to come to me and say they had an idea for something, expecting me to be interested. I had to say I had more than enough ideas of my own to follow through. They were surprised. They thought their idea was the important thing, it was unique, etc. It is only about one in a million will follow through an idea to its completion.

Getting back to Alain's essays, I suppose you can look at it and say, maybe, 'that's pretty obvious, I could have written that'. the point is, that you didn't , you never thought about it in enough depth to string the thoughts together, to research references, check the grammer or the spelin. But Alain did. You get good enough at something, to teach it, to charge a fair old whack for a course, then produce a dvd of more or less your trade secrets. How much do you want? Look at the questions on opf wrt pricing, etc. You charge what you can get. Whereas an artist may see inspiration in his clothes, the colour, the texture of the material, myself as an engineer would be looking at the buttons, the stitching, how did the pattern fit in the bolt, etc. But as Alain says in his conclusion, 'Your inner source of inspiration is most likely very different from mine.'

Best wishes,

Ray

PS - 'you' not personal, but folk at large.
 
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