Rby,

Well keep at it. For me i am a little off center (ask anybody who knows me) and the way i view things are a little bit odd.

Growing up (i'm 34), i didn't keep alot of friends so i looked towards books, movies (especially the horror genre) and music to keep my busy.

I ended up with my first camera (kodak disc) at age 7. I had won it in a school contest and it kinda sat on the shelf for about a year because i just wasn't really into it. until 8/9 years old when Wrestling had come to town and i wanted to keep some memories (not to mention since it was MY hobby, i had to find ways to buy film, get it developed. My parents weren't going to pay for it!)

now keep in mind this was 1987/1988 Was a year of firsts for me, i was just getting interested in heavy metal music which if you know much about that particular genre they tend to be descriptive about what they are singing about and certain bands had certain niches they sang about (Megadeth-politics, Guns N Roses-L.A. Scene. Bands like Danzig and Slayer were occult themed...you get the idea) toss this in with seeing my first horror movie (Nightmare on Elm St 3) and getting interested in Stephen King (The Stand was the first book i read WILLINGLY on my own outside of school and yes it was the unabridged version!) it created an influence heaven.

The more my senses got stimulated is when i started to think maybe, just maybe i had something to offer. These things i were getting into triggered an imagination. But the creative with the camera end didn't start happening until about 2002. Because i was hell bent on being a writer. I wanted to write a movie (horror ofcourse) but I was was stuck in what i called short story limbo. Words no matter how good something might have been i wasn't able to express it on paper. Now i wouldn't say i'm bad at words but i tend to go on these tangents and things get repeated and i can't write dialogue to save my life.

When digital photography came about (and my disc camera was no longer because i beat that into the ground from 1988-1997) it was a godsend because i could learn but also experiment more.

When your stuck with film (i am NOT knocking film at all. I gotta make that clear) but if you just use film, you have to worry about the extra costs (buying film, processing, ect ect) Digital you can edit, maneuver and pretty much do what you want (especially when you shoot raw!)

So in 2002 I started to experiment with some ideas. I have an ego, I will admit, or it could be stubbornness, that i have to be different. I want my photos to stick out from someone else.

I started to dive in heavy into just being different. I made sure i learned the basics (fstops, iso, ect) but i was gonna do things that, like my personality, were off.

Example, Sunflower. Anybody can take a picture of a sunflower. You take a picture of a sunflower and i take a picture of the same flower. Heck, we might even use the settings. The only thing that maybe make or break is the quality of the lens. Keep in mind i am not knocking Nikon or any camera for that matter. I am just using for purpose of discussion. but maybe the flaw in your camera lens has sharpness issues whereas mine wouldn't. But obviously could be fixed in a editing program. But to a viewer, what would make it really stand out? Most would say its just a flower and move on.

That wouldn't be good enough for me, I would have to put some kind of spin on it. Me, Anyone who has seen my stuff over the years knows i always put a slight subtle tilt on it. Sometimes its subtle, sometimes not so much but you will always know who's photo you are looking at.

But even without the tilt, i would make maybe some odd crop choices, maybe section off a petal (just one) to be black and white.

I like (and challenge myself) to put interesting things out. Everyone likes what they like but it is a definite need (for me) to be different. I even take old photos and merge/layer them with new photos to create something new and exciting.

Lots of influences. Lots of stuff to "feed my brain" and at the end of the day its how i digest it, turn it into new and exciting that gives me the ultimate satisfaction in knowing that i got someone to take that one second of their life and be like i never seen anything like that before.

Nobody taught me, i was very influenced but i learned on my own, took what i needed to and i think that's what ultimately happens. I don't thing creativity is learned. I think its digested or absorbed. Its what you do with that "energy" is how creative you are. I think everyone has creative in them but they need triggers. Me the trigger started 25 years ago with the entertainment i found refuge in and the finger hasn't let off yet (hopefully never will) for others, might not be so easy.

I think the key is do what interests you, force yourself to expand on it, ask yourself questions "What if I did this or that" or try looking at it completely differently and be like maybe if i flipped it on its side, changed the perspective maybe eye level instead of on top or bottom maybe even change the colors all together.

Don't be afraid to experiment. Remember though, its about what you like. Don't care so much what anyone thinks as long as you're happy with it. and most importantly don't be afraid to be different!!!

Yes. I'm teaching a Creativity Workshop this coming Wed. Creativity is just problem solving. It is not artistry. A photograph can be beautiful and not be creative. One of my pet peeves are those people that judge creative work in the eyes of artistry. They punish a creative photo because it doesn't fit their narrow definition of photography. One trap we get into is that we reward people photographically for being in the right place at the right time. They take a beautiful photo, but its the location that makes it beautiful. There is technical expertise to capture it well, but very little creativity. One of my recent works took me about 24 hours to create. It has won several awards including best of show in one competition. I entered in a local contest and it scored very poorly (for me) yet every ohh and agh over it when it was projected, but the three judges (in my opinion) are known for very artistic, but non-creative work. All of us with "creative" work (those with really any post-processing) were penalized.