In a sense all photography is creative as to take a photo is to “create” it. Ok I hear some of you saying we merely capture an image, not “create” it but that’s an argument of semantics and perspective. In any case the actual act of capturing the image in the exact manner in which you do so, with your chosen tools, focal length, shutter speed, aperture, angle of view, subject etc is the creative part as there are no right and wrong answers in photography and no single “best” way to shoot in all instances.
However to simply say that all photography is creative photography would render the term redundant and so we can say that “creative” is a relative term and so for a photograph to be considered “creative photography” it should be more creative than the norm. My personal idea of creative photography is work that either shows the subject from an unusual and unexpected viewpoint, captures a specifically contrived (and unusual) scene or work that is shot or altered in such a way as to give a somewhat warped image of reality.
Also my personal tendency is to consider quality as a factor in an photo’s creative content. As when you see work that isn’t quite up to par quality wise it doesn’t look like a product of creativity so much as a result of some stumbling and lack of expertise. Knowledge and ability and the experience to extract all the quality one can from the tools and circumstances you find in an individual shoot can make all the difference between ending up with some true creative photography as a result or ending up with something not quite there.
For me I find the best answer to this question is simply to get photography on my mind as much as I can. The easiest way to do this is to browse online photography, modelling and folio sites for interesting, creative images. The more you look at the work of others and consider what work you like, what you don’t and more importantly WHY you do and don’t like it, the more you will think about your own work and come up with ideas to try and things to combine. This is exactly what being creative is. There is no need to re-invent the wheel, you don’t have to actually create everything from scratch. All creative artistic work is based on a foundation of work that has come before.
Also browsing the work of others that you admire with a view to reverse engineering their creative tools, lighting setups, photoshop workflows etc can be a hugely rewarding and educational experience. For me personally it was the main tool I used to learn how not just how to inject some creativity into my photography but I figured out much of my technical knowledge that way too. Which might explain why I’m not a very technical photographer 
.
In the end creative photography is what you make of it and what you want it to be. If you are enjoying yourself and producing work that you are proud of and that you like to think of as creative then chances are lots of other people will think the same.
Ok, before I get stuck into the tutorial I’ve got a quick challenge for those of you photographically minded: have a look at the shot, look at the shadows and have a guess yourself at what lighting setup I used, then read on to see if you are right!... Read More ››
This is the first in what will hopefully be a long series of tutorials I’ll be posting on how I’ve achieved the effects I have in some of my creative photography shoots. The subject for today is one of the more creative setups I’ve come up with. It’s the... Read More ››
Well it’s still a couple weeks until I start traveling and using this blog for its intended purpose so I figure I may as well throw in a few shots here and there as I get them edited. Here are a couple pics from a shoot I did about... Read More ››
