Finding Your Lost Mojo

(c) Clifford Wheeler

As MEG member Clifford Wheeler describes, taking a new class or embarking on a new project can help you get your creative mojo back if it's been dulled by the demands of daily life.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to take a seminar class with a Master Photographer and Educator with whom I had studied in college three decades ago. It seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up, especially since his was a voice that kept coming back to me through the years across occasions and experiences.

Once the class began I soon realized that I would be subjected to something I hadn't encountered in a long time — homework. Lesson #1: If I had been making a conscious effort to create artwork, to make time in my life to actually do the work on a regular basis, then the idea of homework would not have felt so foreign. I seemed to have gotten into some sort of rut over the years where little time was designated to anything other than making a living. Now, I appreciate how limited my energy levels are and that time must be budgeted no differently than finances.

The parameters of the course were as follows: plan a project, execute the workflow, and produce and exhibit the results. One thing about the creative process is that quite often what we first conceive as a plan can often take on a life of its own. Depending on how you interpret the results of the work in progress, we often produce a body of work quite different from the one originally conceived. Lesson #2, Evaluation of progress is impossible without the use of “work prints!” Careful analysis of the aesthetic events revealed is paramount to connecting with your intent, and establishing a direction forward.

For this class project, I chose to create a collection of photographic portraits using some rather archaic tools. I knew from experience that these tools would create the kind of image I wanted, and I suspected they could get me where I wanted to be very efficiently.

Portraiture is different than simply pointing a camera at something and capturing an image. It’s dependent on a dynamic that requires cooperation and collaboration between the subject and the photographer. This was the variable I was counting on for these pictures, because I planned on keeping almost everything else within the confines of the image area consistent.

(c) Clifford Wheeler

To get started, I set my view camera up in a parking space right next to the warehouse building that housed my studio and pointed it at the north-facing wall. I needed a subject and found an auto-body technician named Ray enjoying a smoke break next door and I encouraged him to spend his break in front of my camera. The resulting image was surprisingly satisfying, and it spurred me forward.

In reviewing my work prints (see Lesson Two), one issue was immediately obvious. My little kettle grill, which always sat on the sidewalk next to my studio door, was visible the left side of the image. Keeping in mind the lesson that all objects within an image area should serve or reinforce the subject, I moved the grill for subsequent shots because it added nothing to the image.  For the next two months, when the light was right, I'd round up some suspicious-looking character who was friendly enough to hang with me for a few moments to complete the project.

The portfolio came together nicely and as I spent time with it, I figured out why the class had been called Beyond The Image, a title I could not for the life of me figure out when I started taking the class. When the images were finally exhibited and I saw them hanging on the wall, I realized that the first photo I had taken was in early autumn, and Ray was wearing a t-shirt. The last photo I took was in November of Richard, and he was wearing a down jacket. When I hung the photo's, the chronological progression revealed something truly extraordinary and quite “Beyond The Image” — seasonal environmental change! The only visual change from the first photo to the last photo (besides the faces) was the the incremental bulk of the subject's outerwear.

Lesson #3: For cool stuff to happen, you have to be working!