In Flow with Otto

Feel the moment

Published on March 4, 2024 by Otto von Münchow15 Comments

This post is taken from my latest photo ponderings, Sideways, which I write every month or so. As you may you know, in this blog I usually write about creativity in general, using my experience as a photographer, but not limited to photography. Sideways is all about photography in which I offer nuggets of photo inspiration.

I am a people photographer by heart. As much as I photograph other subjects, it’s people that make me tick when I am out using my camera. For that very reason, I am a devoted documentary photographer.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a photo master class in Casablanca. It was taught by the renowned photographers Maggie Steber and Sara Terry. Both are routed in the documentary tradition; however, both with a strong poetic vision. This is why I attended their class; to encourage a more poetic approach in my photography, and leave some of the rational, linear and journalistic thinking behind. It’s a direction I have sought and tried to develop for a few years already.

What an experience the class was! Maggie and Sara were so good at pushing and encouraging, not only me, but everyone.

My assignment during the week was simply how does feel to be in Casablanca—or wherever I was. Of course, I took in and applied thoughts and focus points of other participants. Complex composition, for instance, photos with layers of depths, was much in discussions all the time.

But: how does it feel? That seems like an easy assignment. I almost always let my feelings guide my photography. Often, it’s some kind of attraction to people I decide to photograph. It’s about connecting to who or whatever I photograph. But feeling as a subject in and of itself, that is quite a different matter. How do you transfer feeling sad or melancholy or delighted into a photograph—in a place unknown to you?

Not easy. Not as topic on its own. Not to me.

Generally, photography is really about how it feels rather than what it looks like. It’s about seeing that even the mundane details, at home as in faraway places, can be extraordinary and full of feelings. When we get it right, they can feel like timeless gifts. I think of photographs of this kind as kisses: They exist in a brief ecstatic moment and then take on a life of their own.

Photography, at its best, is about moments—particularly when photographing people. It’s never about how it looks. When staying on the surface, and using easy digital effects to make our pictures pretty, we risk trivializing how we really experience our lives. Because, in the end, that is what we want to capture. Life as it unfolds—even when we photograph inanimate objects.

The unforgettable photograph isn’t the most technically proficient or the most “artistic” shot or the one with the “best” composition but the one that makes the deepest connection to the moment you are experiencing and the person you are photographing. It’s about your experience inside a moment.

This life of ours, whether we try to photograph it or not, is a string of moments, like notes in a song. So is a photo shoot, wherever you happen to photograph. You literally capture one moment after the next. Which moment will provide the unforgettable pictures isn’t much in your control. You can’t really see what your camera is capturing in the hundredth of a second the shutter is open. Often, you have no clue what your best photo is until you look at the series of moments playing back on your camera. Often, because that little screen on the camera doesn’t tell you much, the surprise may happen on the computer, hours or days later.

If you can’t see the moments, you can feel their flow, like feeling the flow of music. That feeling is essential to taking captivating photos; it’s as important as having a good eye. Ask yourself, “What makes these moments and these people extraordinary?” Ask that, rather than: “What’s the pose? How am I framing or composing?” And let your feelings steer you to the answer.

Alas, like I wrote, I like to compare taking photos to a kiss. Do you use your eyes when you kiss? Sometimes, maybe, but generally your eyes are closed and it is all about feeling. I try to photograph from the same place.

Take the photo above, captured in the medina, the old town, of Casablanca. I came across these two gentlemen enjoying a quiet moment and their tea together on a street corner. It would probably be wrong to say that it was love at first sight, but there was something serene and so universal about their repose. Asked if it was OK for them to be photographed, they agreed, and I lowered myself to their level and started to take a series of photographs of them. First, they looked into the camera and smiled. However, I was after an off-moment when they didn’t relate to my photographing them. So I kept shooting. At some point I, mostly unconsciously, registered a guy moving into the frame on the street around the corner, adding some depth to the situation. I shifted the camera a little to the left—and took a handful of more frames. The last frame is the one in which the moments fall in place, the two men in the foreground looking away, commenting on something behind my right, and the guy around the corner standing still for a moment.

It all happened in a fluid exchange, me feeling my way, more than seeing and consciously thinking.

So during the class, how did it go with photographing feelings as a subject of its one? Let me put it this way: It’s an ongoing project. And I am having a lot of fun—as frustrating as it can be.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Photo Workshops and Tours Spring 2024
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for the coming spring.

“The Personal Expression”—a weekend in Bergen, Norway with focus on how to develop your personal, photographic expression. May 3rd to 5th 2024.

“On the Path of Cold War Memories”—a very special workshop exploring Berlin in a historic light. Go back in time to when there were two Germanies and two Berlins. May 12th to 17th 2024.

Three Essential Artistic Techniques

Published on January 18, 2024 by Otto von Münchow10 Comments

In the book “The Act of Creation” by the Hungarian author Arthur Koestler—first published back in 1964—he writes that there are three criteria of technique in artistic creation. Those are, according to him, originality, emphasis and economy.

Having those criteria in mind when we create, I believe would be useful to anyone of us who lunge into a creative endeavour. Not that we need to have a framework imposed on us when we create, but we can nevertheless benefit from keepings his criteria in mind.

With originality, Koestler refers to the unexpected, that which comes as a surprise. Personally, I am often reluctant to accentuate originality in and of itself. When we seek the original, we tend to become stall and contrived. We simply cannot deliberately invent originality, that is, sit down and cook up something completely new. The original comes to us by being ourselves, creating genuinely out of what feels right for each of us—whatever it is, we are creating.

The original comes to us when we don’t expect it. It suddenly appears from the subconscious after we have put work into a project and after a certain incubation time. Suddenly we see the connection that we have been searching for. It can happen when we sleep or when we go for a walk or when we do something that does not require intense thought activity. Because it is when we mentally relax that we give the subconscious an opportunity to find a solution.

According to Koestler, the original or the unexpected appears in the intersection between two apparently incompatible planes, dots that unexpectedly become connected. He uses the word bisociation, as a play on the word association, meaning linking up two different planes.

While originality thus is a product of an unconscious process, Koestler’s two other criteria are more related to a conscious approach—not that they cannot be unconsciously spurred.

Emphasise we make happen through selection, exaggeration and simplification. For me as a photographer that means I want to include within the frame only those elements that tell the story I want to tell and leave out those that don’t add anything to the story. I put emphasise on the main object by making it bigger, focus the light on the object and let compositional lines direct the eye to it.

Using a suggestive approach is another way of emphasizing, according to Koestler an essential technique. Suggestions create suspense and facilitate the audience’s flow of associations along habit formed channels. Koestler points out that all non-essential elements should be omitted, even at the price of a certain sketchiness.

Taken together, this three factors, selection, exaggeration and simplification, provide the means of highlighting aspects of reality considered to be siginificant. However, Koestler points out that emphasis is not enough; it can defeat its own purpose. Ir must be compensated by the opposite quality: the exercise of economy, or, more precisely the technique of implication.

This authentic story about Picasso illustrated Koestler’s three criteria of technique in artistic creation:

An art dealer bought a canvas signed ‘Picasso’ and travelled all the way to Cannes to discover whether it was genuine. Picasso was working in his studio. He cast a single look at the canvas and said: “It’s a fake”.

A few months later the dealer bought another canvas signed ‘Picasso’. Again he travelled to Cannes and again Picasso, after a single glance, grunted: “It’s a fake”.

“But cher maître”, expostulated the dealer, “it so happens that I saw you with my own eyes working on this very picture several years ago”.

Picasso shrugged: “I often paints fake”.

The last sentence is both original, emphatic and implicit. Picasso doesn’t say: “Sometimes, like other painters, I do something second-rate, repetitive, an uninspired variation on a theme, which after a while looks to me as if somebody had imitated my technique. It is true that this somebody happened to be myself, but that makes no difference to the quality of the picture, which is no better than a fake; in fact you could all it that—an uninspired Picasso apeing the style of the true Picasso.”

None of this was said; all of it was implied.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Photo Workshops and Tours Spring 2024
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for the coming spring.

“The Personal Expression”—a weekend in Bergen, Norway with focus on how to develop your personal, photographic expression. May 3rd to 5th 2024.

“On the Path of Cold War Memories”—a very special workshop exploring Berlin in a historic light. Go back in time to when there were two Germanies and two Berlins. May 12th to 17th 2024.

Are you interested in developing your photographic skills? Do you like to travel? Do you want to make your photos tell a story in a much stronger vocabulary? Find your own expression? Develop your vision and become more creative? Any of these workshops would take your photography to the next level. I promise you, you will be in for an amazing experience. Click any of the links for more info.

Happy Holidays

Published on December 21, 2023 by Otto von Münchow27 Comments

Now that we are getting very close to the end of 2023, how has the year been for you? Have you developed yourself creatively? Have you been able to keep yourself afloat in the economic downturn we have been through? How do you see the new year coming up?

I think most of us would agree that 2023 has been an interesting year, to say the least. It’s the first full year without a pandemic suffocating the whole world, if the aftermath is still noticeable. Unfortunately, we have seen an increase of war and violence this year. And unrest in many places in the world. But there has also been many, albeit smaller, highlights throughout the year.

For me 2023 has had its ups and downs. My photography business has been hard hit by the economic crisis. I have had to fight for every assignment. In hindsight, now that we are getting towards the end of the year, I can notice that in the end I was able to keep my business at the same level as last year. But, as I said, it’s been a struggle all the way up until now. In fact I made 30 percent of my business income the last two months. One part of the business that has been particularly challenging is the workshops and teaching. In times when the economy is tight, we all must make priorities, and whatever can be considered luxury will be the first to be discarded. Although I have had to cancel a few workshops this year, another year provides new opportunities and I remain optimistic.

Photographically, 2023 has been a good year for me. I feel I have been able to develop myself as a photographer. Throughout the year, I have completed some really good photo projects. One project was street portraits in Naples, a project I worked together with two other photographers, all from different countries. I also went to Bucharest for the first time and did a photo project there, with the whole intention of challenging myself and trying out new ways of photographing.

How has 2023 been for you? And how do you anticipate 2024 to be?

However you face the new year, I hope you will continue to move forward. I wish you all the best. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. And may peace prevail.

Photo Workshops and Tours Spring 2024
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for the coming spring.

“The Personal Expression”—a weekend in Bergen, Norway with focus on how to develop your personal, photographic expression. May 3rd to 5th 2024.

“On the Path of Cold War Memories”—a very special workshop exploring Berlin in a historic light. Go back in time to when there were two Germanies and two Berlins. May 12th to 17th 2024.

Turn Doubt into Something Positive

Published on November 19, 2023November 18, 2023 by Otto von Münchow10 Comments

I want to address something I wrote about in my last Sideways newsletter. Doubt is an element that always accompanies photography, I wrote. Doubt—not only in photography but in any creative endeavour—leads to fear; fear of rejections (which I addressed in my previous blog post), but also, and not the least, fear of failure.

Doubt is particularly ominous when you explore unknown territory, when you try to create something new, venture out of the box. Then you are operating outside of your comfort zone—which, by nature, opens up for uncertainty. And then to doubt; one often leads to the next.

Sometimes uncertainty can push you further, because it makes you alert, more agile and activates you. However, if it turns into doubt it can do the opposite. Doubt can paralyze. Doubt can stop all creativity. Because you fear you might fail.

Here is the thing, though. When you move out of the box, you try something you haven’t done before. One goes with the other. And when you attempt something to which you have no clue, you will inevitably fail.

But so what? What if you fail? What if you put in your best effort and your fail? Is it going to be the end of everything for you?

If there is one thing I can say with certainty, it’s that you will with absolute certainty fail. It’s unavoidable. But think about it this way: the only way you succeed is by failing. The only path to success is through failure. Remember failure is not who you are, it’s not you. Failing doesn’t make you a failure. Also remember that we all fail when we try something new (and other times as well). It doesn’t make it any easier, but maybe it can be of some consolation.

The only way not to fail, is not to try—and then you truly fail. So fail, before you get it right. Learning by doing. As long as you do. Here is a quote of unknown origin that emphasizes this: “I’m not a failure if I don’t make it… I’m a success because I tried.”

If you can approach failure as a first stepping stone for learning, then suddenly it’s not a failure any more. When a baby learns to walk, it falls down time and again. No baby ever just starts walking. The writer Samuel Beckett said: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” The path to success, to new creative discoveries, is littered with failure. Failure after failure after failure.

So embrace failure. And ask how do I move forward from here? What can I learn?

In that perspective you can also use doubt as a positive measurement. It’s simply indicating that you are on a new and untried path; the only path that will develop your creative work.

In mid September I visited Bucharest in Romania. The trip was a continuation of a photo project I have been working on, together with two other photographers, in Naples. This time I wanted to do something different. I wanted to push myself onto thin ice, find a different approach, a new way of photographing. The intention was to develop my photography in some untried direction. I didn’t quite know in which direction I wanted to go, but let myself be guided by intuition, instinct and impulses. And my doubt.

From day one, I was swept over by doubt. I felt that I did not capture a single image that said anything about living in Bucharest, about relational aspects, about being human in general or, for that matter, about Bucharest as a city. The pictures felt irrelevant. I felt I was failing.

I didn’t give up, though. If I wanted to develop my photography there was only one way forward. Daring to stay with it, the doubt. And of course, eventually I captured some images I am content with. Nevertheless, I am disappointed, I can say that much, but, at the end of the day, what is important to me, is that I initiated a process in Bucharest. It’s a process that I will continue—if still ever so much in doubt. I know it’s the only way if I don’t want to stagnate.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Fear of Rejection

Published on September 18, 2023September 16, 2023 by Otto von Münchow8 Comments

As I wrote in the post Getting Across to the Other Side earlier this year, any creative endeavour—whether writing a book, making a painting, doing a photo project, building a blog—can be compared with climbing or walking across a canyon. You begin the project with a clear plan and great enthusiasm, but as you engage in the work your energy for the project begins to fade. However, if you stick with the project through the deepest part of the canyon and keep pushing up again on the other side, you will be greatly rewarded.

As I wrote in the post; the key is to remain focused on your vision and embrace the journey.

Unfortunately, many people experience the struggles at the bottom of the canyon and misinterpret them that they are in the wrong place. They believe that if they were on the right path, everything would fall into place easily.

The thing is; you will rarely be certain you are moving in the right direction, especially when you are headed into unchartered, creative territory. The creative pursuit is about not only recognizing the potential of risk but embracing it as an essential part of growth. If you don’t challenge yourself you will not develop creatively.

Moves that appear the least risky in the short term are often the most risky moves in the long term, because they keep you among the huddled masses of those who are doing expected, mediocre work. The unspoken truth is that very few people ever become comfortable with risk, but brilliant contributors recognize that without measured risk in your life you will not grow.

Over time, this daily uncertainty and the lack of guaranteed results can cause our passion to wane, squelch our ambition, or, worse, cause us to settle into a pattern of producing work that we know does not the reflect the true power of our authentic voice. The better we understand the hurdles that stand in our way, the better equipped we will be to tap into the practices that will aid us in countermanding them.

One of those hurdles is the fear of pursuing our authentic voice. Because that means to break out of the conformity of our culture or the society with which we identify. It’s tough to be seen as different or as an outlier, and that’s exactly what an authentic voice makes us become.

At its heart, the fear of not fitting in is a fear of rejection, often stemming from the concern that poor performance will mean alienation from the group, a degradation of self-worth or self-perception and possible loss of livelihood. Most of us have experienced this fear, whether asked to offer our opinion in a meeting, to deliver a proposal for a new direction for a project, or when simply considering whether or not to share some work we’ve been toiling away in private.

If you want to do unique, contributive work, and develop your voice, you must have the courage to offend. You must recognize that there will be people who just don’t get it, and muster the courage to keep moving forward anyway. You need to be willing to act on your intuitive hunches.

There are plenty of examples of artists and creatives who went against the tide of their time or authorities of their field—and ended up changing our perspective. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, widely hailed as one of the greatest books of the twentieth century, was once rejected by a publishing executive who said, “You’d have a decent book if you’d get rid of that Gatsby character.” In 1962, Decca recording executive Dick Rowe reportedly told Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, “We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out”.

I have certainly had my share of rejections. It’s not enjoyable, not at all. Sometimes, I have been completely devastated by those rejections, wanting to give up. But as I have grown older, I have learned to accept that many, and even most, people might not be interested or like what I do with my photography. Now I don’t take it personally. What drives me to keep on photographing, is the joy of creating, photographing, being able to convey those emotions that made me want to take a photograph in the first place. I want to connect with an audience, but I don’t want to hold back in fear of their rejections. If only a handful appreciate a photo of mine, that will suffice.

I keep walking my path, in whichever direction it takes me.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Goodbye Artist

Published on August 12, 2023August 13, 2023 by Otto von Münchow25 Comments

Is photography art? Should we even care? What is art, anyway?

But first: Now that the summer is slowly coming to an end, I hope you have been able to enjoy this life-endorsing season. As for myself, I have been fortunate enough to venture out on many outdoor trips—in mountains, in forests as well as on the sea—and I have read a lot.

It’s the latter I want to write about in this blog post—or what it has lead to. Among other texts, I have read lots of articles, debates, talks and comments from old masters of photography. As so, an address delivered by Paul Strand at the Clarence White School of Photography in 1923 has dramatically changed the way I see myself as a photographer, my view on art and maybe even my photography (though the latter remains to see, I guess) .

That may seem as quite the exaggerated statement, but hear—or read—me out.

Paul Strand was a trend-setting, American photographer in the beginning of the previous century. According to Wikipedia, he, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form at the time. As to this day, he is still one of the most recognized artists in the pantheon of photographers. However, he might just have disagreed with this very characterization himself. Or not cared.

Photography has always been a stepdaughter of art. As much as it is recognized as one of many art forms today, it’s still not fully on line with the classic arts such as painting, music, sculpturing, etc. Work by the old masters of photography, such as Paul Strand, are sought after and sold at extremely high prices on auction—but they are still far from what the old masters of the classical disciplines—such as Picasso and Miró, contemporaries of Strand—achieve.

As for myself, as a photojournalist and a documentary photographer, I have always been reluctant to call myself an artist. It just seemed too pretentious. The last many years, though, I have slowly changed my perception and gradually come to terms with myself doing work that is more artistic. In the end, it comes down to a desire to create more personal work—work that could be called art photography.

Now then, in from the past, comes Paul Strand.

In the aforementioned address, he talks to the students of photography (and a hundred years later to me) about what is required to become a photographer: “It involves, first and foremost, a thorough respect and understanding for the particular materials with which he or she is impelled to work, and a degree of mastery over them, which is craftsmanship. And secondly, that indefinable something, the living element which fuses with craftsmanship, the element which relates the product to life and must therefore be the result of a profound feeling and experience of life.”

While craftsmanship is relatively easy to learn, this indefinable something, according to Strand, can’t be taught or given, but develops within yourself by what he calls a free way of living. By that, he means free of conventions, free of other opinions, free of already existing ideas, and not the least free from whatever art is defined as, and, more to the point, free from wanting to become an artist. What is art anyway? Nobody can precisely define it and as it has gotten used in an ever broader meaning, it has at the same time lost its meaning.

“This wanting to be what may truthfully be called an artist, is the last thing in the world to worry about. You either are the thing or you are not.”

Strand has but no respect for the so-called art photographers of the time. At the beginning of the 19th century, pictorialism was the fashionable style. For Strand, this way of making photographs was dishonest, trying to turn photography into something, which it is not, giving it a painterly feeling. He saw it as means to be accepted in what he calls the polite society of artists. These “artists” were doing photography in lack of enough talent to become good painters.

He wants the future photographers he is talking to, to be free, as described above. They should photograph with honesty, honest to themselves. He encourages them to photograph and experiment on their own accord, free from whatever has been or will be installed in them from previous photographers, schools and the future. More than anything, he urges them to forget about art.

“If you really want to paint, then do not photograph, except as you may want to amuse yourself along of the rest of Mr. Eastman’s customers [Eastman was Kodak’s founder]. Photography is not a short cut to painting, being an artist, or anything else.”

Photographers should not try to “make” art, but rather capture good photographs. In doing so, “there are no short cuts, no formulae, no rules, except those of your own living.”

Be as good a photographer as possible, forget being an artist. That is in essence Paul Strand’s message.

He was not alone in this assessment. The same year Edward Weston, another of the modernist photographers of the 19th century, in an interview in New York Times said something alike: “I don’t care about making photography an art. I want to take good photographs. I’d like to know who first got this idea in his head that dreaminess and mist is art. Take things as they are; take good photographs and the art will take care of itself.”

That’s me now. I am a photographer—period. Like a writer is a writer, a painter is a painter, a composer is a composer. Why care about the artist, anyway?

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Photo Workshops and Tours in 2023
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for this year.

”Along the Streets of Prague”—five days in the beautiful city of Prague, The Czech Republic. This is a jewel in the middle of Europe with its historical, cultural and human melting pot. September 7th to 10th 2023.

”Photo Tour in Granada”—a week in Nicaragua for the adventures. We will explore the colonial city and its extraordinary countryside. November 5th to 15th 2023.

”On the Tracks of Che Guevara”—ten days in eastern Bolivia. This is a great opportunity to discover one of the most beautiful countries in South America. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

Do You Have a Spine?

Published on July 2, 2023July 2, 2023 by Otto von Münchow7 Comments

Any creative project, or any broader body of work, needs a spine for it to stick. I am not talking about single images, for instances; photos you capture on the street or in Mother Nature that doesn’t become part of something bigger. No, I am talking about something more comprehensive, such as a photo essay, a book, a film, a concert, you know, whatever you are working with and put together to express something deeper and more profound.

The spine for such a project begins with your first strong idea. You were scratching to come up with an idea, you found one, and through the next stages of creative thinking your nurtured it into the spine of your creation. The idea is the toehold that gets you started. The spine is the statement you make to yourself outlining your intention for the work. You intent to tell this story. You intent to explore this theme. You intent to employ this structure. The audience, the viewers, the readers may infer it or not. But if you stick to your spine, the piece will work.

Let me take a photographic photographic project I have been working on for quite some years and am about to put together in its final form, as an example. You have already seen some of the photos, here in this blog that will be part of it. Already from the very beginning, I had an idea of how I wanted to pursue the project. The foundation for the project is a bunch of farm ruins that are spread over a small area in a bottom of a valley very close to my home city Bergen in Norway. Often times I have wandered around these ruins—and felt a tremendous draw by them. I can feel the harsh existence it would have been to make a living here back hundreds of years when the small farms were still inhabited. Even more so, I almost feel at home, as if I had once lived this life. Yes, this sounds high-flying and even daft, but nevertheless it’s how I feel every time I wander around in the ruins.

That feeling is the foundation of the photo project. Then I have nurtured the idea and elaborated how to convert that feeling into something more tangible. I wanted to pursue a threefold expression. Firstly, I want to hint at the life as it was back in the old days, the farmers’ world and how they understood it. Then I wanted to tell my own connection with this area. Finally, I want to express the beauty of the valley the farmers and myself have shared through this many hundreds of years. Only now am I putting the project together, and I have chosen the final outcome as a series of triptychs—images that consists of three panels or three separate photos put next to each other. One of the final photos is then one above. Please click it for a larger screen view.

What I have just described here is the spine of the project.

In my early days of creative fumbling and trying out, I never thought about spine. I was content to receive any random thought floating through the ether that happened to settle on me that day. I didn’t even think I needed a supporting mechanism for the photos I took, the pieces I wrote, the drawings I made. I thought getting lost was part of the adventure.

I was wrong.

Floating spineless can get you through the day, but at some point you’ll be lost in the middle of a project, whether it’s a painting, a novel, a song, a poem or a photo project, and you won’t know how to get back to what you are trying to accomplish. It might not happen in your first creation, which, in your bubble of sweet inexperience, may skim from heart to mind to canvas, page, stage or image sensor exactly as you intended, perfect in shape, proportion, and meaning. However, it will happen in the next piece, or the one after that. It happens to everyone. You’ll find yourself pacing your particular white room, asking yourself: what am I trying to say? That is the moment when you will embrace, with gratitude, the notion of spine.

You can discover the spine of a piece in many ways. You can find it with the aid of a friend. That’s what editors do for writers who have lost their way. You can induce the spine with a ritual. Sometimes the spine does double duty, both as the covert idea guiding the artist and the overt them for the audience. That’s what makes Herman Melvillle’s Moby Dick so powerful and enduring. It has a solid unrelenting spine: Get the whale. Sometimes the spine of a piece comes from the music you listen to. There are just so many ways the spine can come to you or be developed by yourself.

Keep in mind that coming up with a spine is neither a chore nor a distraction that takes you away from the real work of the creative process. It’s a tool, a gift you give yourself to make your job easier. As for the particular quality of your spine, it doesn’t matter how you developed it or how you exploit it; your choice of spine is as personal as how you pray—if you pray at all. It’s a private choice that only has to provide comfort and guidance to you. It’s your spine. Use what works for you.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Photo Workshops and Tours in 2023
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for this year.

”Photo Tour in Granada”—a week in Nicaragua for the adventures. We will explore the colonial city and its extraordinary countryside. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

”On the Tracks of Che Guevara”—ten days in eastern Bolivia. This is a great opportunity to discover one of the most beautiful countries in South America. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

Listen to the Muses

Published on April 17, 2023April 13, 2023 by Otto von Münchow9 Comments

As creative people we need to learn to listen. That’s the way we get in touch with the creative well, or the universe of ideas, or our inspired self. Listening is essential in the creative process. Listening opens the door to getting in flow, a central element in the creative process.

When listening there is only now. In Buddhist practice, a bell is rung as part of the ritual. The sound instantly pulls the participants into the present moment. It’s a small reminder to wake up.

As in the good conversation, the one with the ability to listen will learn, while the one who only talks will inevitably continue to repeat himself.

If you are to draw impulses from the creative well you must become more open and receptive. You must listen. Creating is closely linked to the ability to listen. Listening to our unconscious mind, or listening to the muses, or listening to the creative power of the universe of which we are a part, or listening to our inner voice—whatever you prefer to call it.

We do not create in a vacuum or out of our little selves. We create in an exchange with something greater than ourselves. By listening to what always flows through us like an underground river of creativity, we are able to form works of art that express a deeper truth or communicate a universal, human experience. It doesn’t matter if we photograph, write, dance, act, paint, sculpture or express ourselves through other types of media. By listening, we create with an unknown strength as if we are mediators of a creative force stronger than ourselves.

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron writes: “Art is not about inventing. It’s about the opposite – getting something down. The directions are important here.”

If we try to think something out, we strive for something just beyond our reach, “up there, in the stratosphere, where art lives,” as Cameron writes. This “up there” is indeed difficult to reach when we try with compulsion. If, on the other hand, we let it fall down by itself, just listening for it, there is no load attached to the process. We don’t do anything, we get. Something outside of our awareness of what is me. Instead of trying to invent, we become engaged in listening and taking it down.

The master Michelangelo is said to have stated that he freed David from the block of marble he found him in. Or as Jackson Pollack put it: “The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it show.” If you have experienced being in flow, you know the feeling that what you are creating already exists in its entirety. Our job when we create is to listen for this, see it with eyes turned inward and write it down, photograph it, paint it, sculpture it.

While the eyes and mouth can be sealed, an ear has no lid, nothing to close. It takes in what surrounds it. It receives but can’t transmit. The ear is simply present to the world.

When we hear, sounds enter the ear autonomously. Often we’re not aware of all the individual sounds and their full range. Listening is paying attention to those sounds, being present with them, being in communion with them. Though, to say that we listen with the ears, or the mind, might be a misconception. We listen with the whole body, our whole self.

Many of us experience life as if we’re taking it in through a pair of headphones. We strip away the full register. We hear information, but don’t detect the subtler vibration of feeling in the body, we don’t listen to the inner river of creativity.

When you practice listening with the whole self, we expand the scope of your consciousness to include vast amounts of information otherwise missed, and discover more material to feed your art habit. If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself lost in the experience. When the piece ends, you might be surprised by where you find yourself. You’ve been transported to another place. The place where music lives.

Lose yourself in the listening. Lose control and be nothing but receptive. Listening is the way to experiences your creative well of unknown ideas.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Photo Workshops and Tours in 2023
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for this year.

“The Personal Expression”—a weekend in Bergen, Norway with focus on how to develop your personal, photographic expression. June 9th to 11th 2023.

”Photo Tour in Granada”—a week in Nicaragua for the adventures. We will explore the colonial city and its extraordinary countryside. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

”On the Tracks of Che Guevara”—ten days in eastern Bolivia. This is a great opportunity to discover one of the most beautiful countries in South America. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

Getting Across to the Other Side

Published on March 26, 2023 by Otto von Münchow21 Comments

Imagine yourself standing on the edge of a canyon, preparing to hike to the other side. Below you can see trees, rivers flowing through the canyon, and the beauty of the landscape surrounding it. From your privileged position, you can see the entirety of the terrain, the path down and back up the other wall of the chasm, and the ending point of your journey.

It seems so simple, and you have plenty of energy for the hike. You’re excited about the possibility of reaching the other side, and you set out on an aggressive pace. However, as you descend into the canyon, you become less certain about your position. The tall trees make it difficult to navigate, and the steepness of the decline is taking a toll on your knees.

In the midst of your hike, you can no longer see the end objective. The path that was so clear at the top is now difficult to discern. At the bottom of the canyon, you suddenly realize that you have a long, uphill climb in order to complete your hike by sundown. However, this is where you training kicks in, those long hours of practice beforehand, and you find some new energy. Finally, that is if you haven’t given up, just before the sun slips over the horizon, you step onto the ledge of the opposite site. As you turn around and glance back, you have a newfound respect for the canyon that seemed so simple and traversable at the outset.

The journey through the canyon is similar to how every creative endeavour takes shape. In his book Lourder than Words, Todd Henry tells that artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon once shared with him a bit of advice she received from an art teacher who had greatly impacted her life. The teacher told her that every creative project, regardless of what kind, has a U shape. You begin the project with a clear plan and great enthusiasm, but as you engage in the work your energy for the project begins to fade. Things that once seemed simply when you were at the top of the curve are now complex, muddy, and unclear. What appeared clearly in your mind is no longer so straightforward. This is the point where many give up.

However, if you stick with the project through the deepest part of the U, your passion begins to swell again, patterns form, you eventually find the path, and your energy level returns, perhaps even in greater measure. When this happens, the resulting work is better than ever seemed possible in the valley of despair.

Every creative project—writing a book, making a painting, doing a photo project, building a blog—follows the same U shape. If you rely solely on your emotions to guide you, it’s likely you’ll give up just as you are on the uptick again. Instead, you must be guided by a larger vision for your work, and keep the goal in sight, even when it’s obscured by complications and frustration.

The key is to remain focused on your vision and embrace the journey. As famed sculptor Auguste Rodian remarked, “Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely”. The peaks, the valleys, and the struggles in between are all useful in pointing you towards the brilliance that’s being called out for you.

Talking about canyons, earlier this month I put together a monograph of photos from one of the many canyons I have visited. I have for a long time thought about making it but finally, I got around to do. I got through the U shape of this project. The photos were taken on a backpacking trip I made a few years ago with my partner. We went with tent and sleeping bags into Canyonlands National Park in Utah, USA, in one of the most spectacular landscapes I have ever experienced.

You can get the eBook for free here: The Colours of the Earth.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.

Photo Workshops and Tours in 2023
These are the photo workshops I and Blue Hour Photo Workshops plan for this year.

“The Personal Expression”—a weekend in Bergen, Norway with focus on how to develop your personal, photographic expression. June 9th to 11th 2023.

”Photo Tour in Granada”—a week in Nicaragua for the adventures. We will explore the colonial city and its extraordinary countryside. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

”On the Tracks of Che Guevara”—ten days in eastern Bolivia. This is a great opportunity to discover one of the most beautiful countries in South America. October 23rd to 31st 2023.

Small Steps Lead to Giant Leaps

Published on February 13, 2023February 11, 2023 by Otto von Münchow16 Comments

To create implies some kind of active effort. Creating means, literally, to create something. We are all struck by fabulous ideas from time to time—or maybe all the time, but if you don’t convert the ideas into something physical or concrete, you aren’t really being creative. Good intentions aren’t enough. You simply aren’t creating before you actually do.

Sometimes the challenge in creating is not that there’s a lack of ideas, but rather that our heads are so filled with ideas that we can’t quite figure out how to make the first move. Our mind doesn’t mind (excuse the pun) coming up with ideas. But it plays tricks with us when it comes to translate the ideas into action. There is a fear of failure in the equation, but also, strangely enough, a fear of success. More so, just the amount of work we believe is needed can pull us off.

We find all kinds of excuses for not doing the actual work. We insist that we need to answer all the incoming emails first or clear our desk, or convince ourselves that we need to gather more information before proceeding. But in the end, the best way to create something is simply to start. And there is no need to take a flying leap. Tiny steps are OK.

Some time ago, I lost a chapter in a book about Cuba I am working on. It was all due to lack of a backup when I deleted a file I thought was a copy (but wasn’t). The thought of having to rewrite the chapter was overwhelming, but I got around the obstacle but telling myself that I only needed to write one paragraph—or even just one sentence if necessary to get me going—at any given time. This morning I finished the rewrite, and I think the second draft is actually better than the first.

Researcher and writer Loretta Graziano Brenning says in her book Meet Your Happy Chemicals that “you don’t have to finish a job in one fell swoop, you can also chop it up into smaller pieces. One advantage is that each time you finish a piece you will be rewarded by a dose of dopamine. Each step you complete feels like a triumph and will trigger this pleasure hormone.”

Those first few strokes of the brush on a canvas, or the first few sentences in a chapter, can be the hardest, but once you commit to making them, the next stroke will be easier. With writing, it’s typing or scrawling the first word, then another, then another.

All beginnings are difficult. Why is it so hard to take the first step? According to Robert Maurer, professor of psychology, it has to do with fear. When you take on a challenge—large or small—it means you have to leave behind your safe routines. Even more so with a creative endeavour. When you create you commence on something completely new, a route you have no idea where it will take you.

That which hinders us is very physical. The amygdale in your brain (which likes clarity, tranquillity, and predictability) sets off an alarm, which, to you, feels like a block. Maurer says you can get around this by taking small steps: “Setting yourself goals that are easy to reach, like meditating five minutes each day, or clearing only one of the stacks on your desk, allows you to sneak by your amygdale on tippy toes so that it doesn’t set off an alarm.”

Little steps lower the threshold to starting something new but there is also another advantage: You can do them even when you only have little time. There are plenty of scientific studies proving that little steps can lead to big leaps. Such as a sentence or paragraph at a time can lead to chapter or even a book.

Maurer says taking small steps builds new familiar neural pathways: “You will soon start feeling less resistance to your new resolutions and it will take barely any effort. What’s more it’s quite likely that your brain will start longing for new behaviour, whether it’s regular physical exercise, ten minutes of meditation, or standing up for yourself… It won’t feel like a challenge anymore but like part of your daily routine.

So what about making your creative efforts into a daily routine? You can do it.

On a different note, but nevertheless related, this year I am teaching five photo workshops. If you are into photography, nothing gets you going like attending a workshop. This year I will teach workshops in Norway, Cuba, Prague, Bolivia and Nicaragua. If this sounds interesting you can find more information here: Scheduled Photo Workshops in 2023.

Would you like to get motivating thoughts related to the act of photographing? Every once a month I write Sideways—nuggets of inspiration on photography. Sign up to receive Sideways in your email.