The test for creativity, in my opinion, is you produce. You don’t think about art, you make it.

It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good or you’ll be successful, you just can’t help yourself. There’s a desire to interpret, replicate–to understand the world you inhabit. You find an outlet and fulfill that desire.

Currently, I’m restricted to very short walks around the neighbourhood. I was feeling disheartened about the lack of creative stimulation until I read about some of the great artists of our (my) time and how they adapted to the tribulations of aging.

Paul Cezanne often revisited the same locations and painted the same subjects as age diminished his capacity to travel. Interestingly, he continued to interpret the subject differently as he matured as an artist and as a man. Similarly, with Claude Monet, who painted and repainted (up to 250) versions of waterlilies in the same water garden.

Perhaps the “clearest example of adaption becoming invention” is Henri Matisse. At 77, he took a major health hit but rather than allow it to be the end of his artistic agency, he redesigned the act of creation to adapt to his new reality. In doing so, he discovered a new artistic territory that previously had not existed for him.

True creatives don’t have trouble finding inspiration. It’s just the opposite. The challenge is what to choose and then to maintain a focus. Neither do they need ideal situations for the muse to visit them. When circumstances change, creativity isn’t put on hold, the artist adapts.

Adapting. That’s what I’m doing now.

These examples gave me the motivation to try things differently. Since I can’t spend time wandering through parks and wild places in search of autumn tableaux, I’ve brought them indoors.

My studio is the dining room table, where I position leaves, branches and props on various coloured backdrops. I can control the light naturally and artificially and arrange my subjects accordingly. This has given me the opportunity to try different photographic techniques as well.

It’s not like going for a photo walkabout in nature, but it beats bemoaning my current situation. And who knows, as Tennyson wrote,

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done

Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, here are some samples of my dining-room-table-studio work.

You can view more at https://rodraglin.smugmug.com/Tableau-Staged-Photography-

#adapting #creativity #aging #Stilllife #SoftFocus #IntentionalCameraMovement