We all communicate with each other. In our every day dealings we use our verbal vocabulary. But as artists we also communicate, this time through our medium. And for this we have another vocabulary, our Creative Vocabulary.
Let’s take a closer look.
Verbal Vocabulary
We are all familiar with the verbal vocabulary. These are the words we use to communicate to each other. I’m using my verbal vocabulary right now to communicate my ideas to you. You are using your verbal vocabulary to process what I am saying.
I remember when my daughter was learning to speak. She’s 16 now but when she first started to speak she just spoke one word utterances. Then she started putting two in three words together into short phrases. After that she started speaking in short sentences. It was amazing to watch her vocabulary grow. I also remember when she was trying to tell us something sometimes she would stop and get this look of concentration on her face. You could see the gears turning in her head. She knew what she wanted to say but couldn’t quite figure out the words to use to say it. Eventually she would figure out how to say it and continue on talking.
Creative Vocabulary
Artists also have a vocabulary. It is the vocabulary they use to communicate through their art, their creative vocabulary. And just like my daughter the artist’s creative vocabulary grows has he or she matures.
What is the creative vocabulary? Well, the creative vocabulary is the set of techniques associated with a particular medium. Each medium has its own unique set of techniques, its own vocabulary. So acquiring a creative vocabulary is a process of learning and mastering the techniques associated with the artist’s medium.
The dancer’s creative vocabulary consists of body movements and positions in space. By themselves these techniques do not make a dance. It’s when these words, these techniques are put together in a meaningful way that you have a ballet.
So a large creative vocabulary isn’t enough. The artist needs to know how to use it to effectively communicate through his or her art. Because, art is communication. Art is interpretation. And the artist uses his or her creative vocabulary to communicate their view of the world through their art.
The Creative Vocabulary Of Photography
Just like any other art form, photography has a creative vocabulary. It falls into two main categories –the creative vocabulary in the field and the creative vocabulary in the darkroom. Let’s talk about the vocabulary in the field.
Creative Vocabulary in the Field
As photographers we have the creative vocabulary of our gear. We have our cameras, lenses, tripods, filters and all the assorted gear that we carry around in our camera bags. Our cameras are very complex computers. They can do a great many things. There’s a lot to learn to use them effectively. It takes a great deal of study to become proficient with them. The basic role of the camera is to get a good exposure and a properly focused image. But the rest of the functionality helps improve the quality of that image. So just learning to use the camera effectively is a big task and as we learn to use it our creative vocabulary grows.
In addition to the gear there are techniques for using it such as HDR, panoramas, blurs, multiple exposures and more.
And that’s just the technical side of the creative vocabulary in the field. There is also the artistic side. Chief among these is composition. Learning the principles of composition and learning when and how to apply them in a meaningful way is a lifelong endeavor.
Learning composition is like learning to walk. At first you concentrate very intently on what you’re doing. But once you learn to walk you do so without even thinking about it. The same is true of composition. We study the principles of composition and apply them again and again until they become second nature. We expand our vision and the way we see the world until we compose images without even thinking about it.
Light is also a lifelong study. There are so many aspects and subtleties to learn about light that it’s a never ending process.
Composition and light make up the artistic creative vocabulary in the field.
Creative Vocabulary in the Darkroom
We also have a creative vocabulary of the darkroom. And in this age it’s the digital darkroom. We have our hardware, our computers, monitors, printers, etc. And we have our software.
The only thing I want to comment on regarding the hardware is calibrating our monitors. This gets into the whole topic of color management. We won’t go into that here but it’s very important. With color management we can produce images on paper that look like the images on our monitors.
But the software offers a virtually unlimited wealth of techniques, an unlimited creative vocabulary. And there are so many software tools out there. We have our raw image converters like Lightroom, Aperture, Adobe Camera Raw and more. Then we get into the big programs like Adobe Photoshop. And there are other program like PhotoMatix not to mention all the plugins.
Each one of the software tools has an incredible range of techniques, more than we could ever learn in a lifetime. And the techniques themselves can be used on many different levels and in many different ways. Take Hue/Saturation. Virtually everyone uses it. Some just use the Saturation slider while others will also use the Brightness slider and still others the Hue slider. And the amount of saturation applied varies from one person to the next.
More Thoughts on Creative Vocabulary
But we don’t need to learn every possible word in our creative vocabulary. If you think about your verbal vocabulary you don’t use all the words you know. You just use those words you need to communicate. The same is true for the vocabulary of the digital darkroom.
Let me give you an example. Some landscape photographers when photographing a scene with a clear blue sky won’t hesitate if to drop in a beautiful cloud filled sky in Photoshop. It’s a powerful technique and I don’t argue with them if they choose to do that. But I choose not to so that is not a technique I need to learn.
As our creative vocabulary grows our ability to communicate through our art also grows. Like my daughter trying to find the words to express herself, we at first may not be able to say and do all the things we want to. I have photographs that I took early on that I could not complete because I lacked the vocabulary. But now I’ve acquired the techniques and can. I also find that as my vocabulary grows my photographs become more sophisticated. I’m able to express feelings, moods, emotions that I couldn’t in the past.
I know from my own experience that the concept of a creative vocabulary has helped me grow as an artist. Being aware of the process of acquiring and mastering new techniques and incorporating them into my workflow has helped understand and expand my own personal style. I have seen my own work mature as my creative vocabulary grows. I hope that you too will find this idea illuminating and that it will help you along the way in your journey into your art.
Join me on an upcoming workshop. Click here for more details.
To see more of my photographs click here.
(1306)
