Using Visual Metaphors

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Here’s an excerpt from my column in the current issue of AfterCapture magazine.
“In photography, metaphors are visual rather than verbal. Different kinds of connections and transferences of shared qualities are made more easily with visual language than with verbal language. Relationships that can be seen but not easily put into words may become clear to the viewer. The echo of compositional elements, such as line, shape, texture, or color, between two (or more) draws a connection between two things that ordinarily might seem unrelated. Quite often, visual metaphors are not the echo of things already existing in the image, but instead offer specific reminders of things that are not in the image.
Interestingly, visual metaphors are rarely as direct as verbal metaphors. When you read a metaphor like, “Your love is a fire that burns me,” it’s crystal clear what metaphor is being used. You read fire and see it in your mind’s eye. Visual metaphors are often less obvious and more suggestive. If a shadow suggests the shape of an animal, it may not be definitively clear which animal it is, rather than a specific animal, it may be animalistic. Consequently, visual metaphors may be subject to multiple interpretations and this may or may not be a good thing. Visual metaphors may not be recognized consciously, but if they’re present, they are always felt.
We use metaphors to invest things with heightened emotion, qualify our responses to them, and produce insight. You can use metaphors to guide you deeper into a subject and your relationship with the subject. This works best if you truly connect mentally and emotionally with the subject and the metaphors you choose. Once you’ve identified the subjects and metaphors you react to most strongly, nurture your connection with and understanding of them. Free association, amplification, contemplation, and gestation help. You’ll find that internal processes are just as important as the external processes. They are what provide the inner life to your creative endeavors.
Metaphors can transform a commonplace perspective into an exceptional one. They can enrich your life. And you, in turn, can enrich ours.”
Find more online resources in my Creativity Lessons.
Learn more creative techniques in my Illuminating Creativity workshops.

SCAMPER

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SCAMPER
Having trouble coming up with new ideas? Get thousands of ideas with one word. Try SCAMPER. In 1939 advertising executive Alex Osborn, “the father of brainstorming”, first proposed a set of nine strategies for creative thinking, seven of which were later rearranged by Bob Eberle into the mnemonic SCAMPER.
S   Substitute
C   Combine
A   Adapt
M   Modify
P   Put to Other Uses
E   Eliminate
R   Rearrange
What are the other two missing words?
Minify, which I like to think of as expand and contract or put another way reduce and enlarge.
Reverse, which I think is the most powerful tool of all. It’s typified by the 180 degree rule. Do the opposite.
The underlying assumption with SCAMPER is that new ideas are based on old ones. This may not always be the case, but often it is. To use SCAMPER, you have to start with something.
You can use SCAMPER as a list of questions that can be used to generate new ideas. Simply ask, “Can I ____ something?” inserting the words SCAMPER represents one at a time. Next, you might try using two words at a time. Later try three. Classically, the best solutions are the simplest, but not always.
Find over 20 creativity tips here.
Learn more in my workshops.

LIDLIPS

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Lessons I Didn’t Learn In Photo School
Syl Arena’s LIDLIPS started as blog posts on Pixsylated. They were so popular he’s collected them in a book.Syl delivers common sense wisdom that refreshes, provides a useful perspective, and brings you back to center.
Here’s one.
36. Make photos even when you don’t have a camera
Photography has way more to do with seeing than it does with driving a piece of hardware. Practice your skills as a photographer even when you don’t have a camera. Make mental pictures anywhere at anytime. Study the light around you. Watch the gestures and expressions of people across the restaurant. Look for geometry in the surfaces and shadows around you. Pick a word. Say it to yourself every time you take a mental picture. “Snap”.
Here are 9 more topics.
Don’t confuse distraction with creativity.
Embrace stress as the opposite of apathy.
Making yourself vulnerable is a sign of strength.
Listen for answers to questions you didn’t ask.
Look along the edges to find the in betweens.
If your camera were a pencil or a crayon it would be easy to understand it’s limitations.
Make photos even when you don’t have a camera.
Creativity comes as a breeze before it comes as a gale.
Be prepared for your dreams to come true.
Find all 100 LIDLIPS and the book here.
Find LIDLIPS on Amazon here.
Find my creatvity Lessons here.

Creativity Quotes on Twitter

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Everyday I post quotes on creativity on Twitter.
Here are some of my favorites.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. – William Blake
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. – Rumi
We do not see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. – The Talmud
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. – Andre Gide
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T.S. Eliot
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.  – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You can read the quotes I post on Twitter in the top right of this blog.
You can find many more and “Follow” me on my Twitter page here.

Storytelling

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Every picture tells a story. Every picture? Every picture!
Even abstract images tell stories. The stories they tell are not about their subjects. By definition they don’t have subjects. Or do they? They have themselves. So they tell stories about themselves. They tell stories about the things that make them –  color, line, texture, shape, proportion, etc. How all of those things relate is a drama of form.
How many kinds of stories are there? There are scientific stories that tell us what things are and how they work. There are historical stories that tell us how things were, how they changed, and what they’ve become today – some even speculate about how things will be tomorrow. There are emotional stories that tell us how people respond emotionally to things. There may be more kinds of stories, but these are the big ones. When it comes to images, the stories they tell are usually only about a few kinds of things. The images themselves. The things images contain. The processes things go through. The feelings people have in response to things and processes. The concepts created through interpretation. Things – Nouns. Processes – Verbs. Feelings – Adjectives and Adverbs. Concepts – Abstract Ideas.
So if every picture tells a story, one way to determine the strength of an image is to ask, “How strong is the story?” Put another way, one way to improve your images is to tell stronger stories. A story doesn’t have to be big or dramatic to be strong; it just has to be told well. Tell stories strongly. Tell them with stronger form; tell them by more clearly delineating actions; tell them by disclosing emotional responses more passionately; tell them by inspiring us to find the bigger picture beyond each picture or group of pictures …
Read the rest in the current issue of AfterCapture magazine.
Find more in my free Creativity Lessons.
Learn more in my Workshops.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on Flow

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Key concepts from a leader in the scientific study of creativity.
Flow (optimum performance) happens best when people have a high degree of skill and are presented with challenges of moderate to high but not too high intensity.
I think flow can happen for anyone regardless of skill level or degree of challenge, but both ingredients can help people get into flow more consistently, recognize when they’re there and it’s value, and stay there longer. Choosing the challenge to take on and how to approach it  are key aspects for any creative person who wants to target results.
Learn more in my Creativity Lessons and Workshops.

Combination

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You can create synergy between existing elements in your images and generate something new. How? Takes these steps.
Step one. Identify all the elements in your best images.
Step two. List all the possible combinations.
Step Three. Put what you’ve discovered into words.
Step four. Select the most promising combinations to pursue.
Step five. Generate a lot of variations on a single combination before committing to a final solution.
Step six. Execute.
This is an extreme distillation of my article Combination, now in the current issue of AfterCapture magazine.
Read more in my Creativity ebooks.
Learn more in my workshops.