I had a brief meeting this morning at The Barberville Pioneer Settlement. This living history museum in west Volusia County is devoted to preserving Florida's rural past and promoting folk artists to the community. While there, I decided to give myself a bit of a creativity assignment. The place is loaded with photographic opportunities.
Creativity is thinking something different. In this instance, my curiosity had been somewhat satisfied as I was already aware of the many historic structures and building on the property and had photographed many of them previously. But, one structure in particular, I had not been able to photograph. The Tomoka Turpentine Still. This 1924 still is the only known still open to the public.
Lighting was not ideal as the sun was directly overhead and provided extreme contrast. An approach for making a decent photograph in difficult conditions is to use a composition concept called framing. This involves using objects in the photograph to frame the main subject. It creates depth and interest and draws the viewer's eye into the scene. After a quick walk around the still, I decided to use some tree branches as the framing device.
Creative thinking, at least photographically, has become second nature. It begins, very quickly, by asking myself the trigger questions: "What if?" and "Why not?" Applied to any circumstance, these triggers can start the creative process.
Need updated marketing materials? "What if .....?"
Want to reach out to a community connector? "Why not...?"
Want to implement a new networking strategy? "What if...?"
The creativity trigger questions work best with brainstorming sessions and allowing all possibilities to be considered.
Think something different.
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