If you'd like to see more of Lorne's images please visit http://www.lorneresnick.com

For select previous Museletters, go here.

This Museletter is about creativity in all its forms. It includes excerpts, stories, quotations and various musings designed to educate, motivate, inspire and to be pondered & enjoyed.

As well as shooting commercial projects on location and in the studio for advertising clients, Lorne has recently published a fine art photo book on his 20-years of shooting in Cuba, available here. He also teaches travel photography workshops throughout the world.

Here's what's inside this issue:
1. A Box of Crayons
2. Outside the Box
3. Travel Photography Workshops: (Cuba, Africa, Los Angeles)

The creative urge we humans feel from birth – to draw, paint, sing, dance and decorate ourselves and our surroundings – is largely stifled by left-brained, bottom-line driven education and lifestyle. Pat Hart

How To Be Creative. Part 2 of 5

Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten:
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with books on algebra etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the creative bug is just a wee voice telling you, “Iʼd like my crayons back, please.”

So youʼve got the itch to do something. Write a screenplay, start a painting, write a book, turn your recipe for fudge brownies into a proper business, whatever. You donʼt know where the itch came from; itʼs almost like it just arrived on your doorstep, uninvited. Until now you were quite happy holding down a real job, being a regular person...until now.

You donʼt know if youʼre any good or not, but youʼd think you could be. And the idea terrifies you. The problem is, even if you are good, you know nothing about this kind of business. Heh. Thatʼs not your wee voice asking for the crayons back. Thatʼs your outer voice, your adult voice, your boring and tedious voice trying to find a way to get the wee crayon voice to shut the hell up.

Your wee voice doesnʼt want you to sell something. Your wee voice wants you to make something. Thereʼs a big difference.

If you try to make something just to fit your uninformed view of some hypothetical market, you will fail. If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed.

The wee voice didnʼt show up because it decided you need more. Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it. Thereʼs something you havenʼt said, something you havenʼt done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of. Now.

So you have to listen to the wee voice or it will die…taking a big chunk of you along with it. Theyʼre only crayons. You didnʼt fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?

Keep your day job:
Iʼm not just saying that for the usual reason i.e., because I think your idea will fail. Iʼm saying it because to suddenly quit oneʼs job in a big olʼ creative drama-queen moment is always, always, always in direct conflict with what I call “The Sex & Cash Theory.”

THE SEX & CASH THEORY: The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs. One is
the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often.

Itʼs balancing the need to make a good living (“Cash”) while still maintaining oneʼs creative sovereignty (“Sex”).

Iʼm thinking about the young writer who has to wait tables to pay the bills, in spite of her writing appearing in all the cool and hip magazines…who dreams of one day of not having her life divided so harshly.

Well, over time the “harshly” bit might go away, but not the “divided.” This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended.

As soon as you accept this, I mean really accept this, for some reason your career starts moving ahead faster. I donʼt know why this happens. Itʼs the people who refuse to cleave their lives this way—who just want to start Day One by quitting their current crappy day job and moving straight on over to best-selling author…well, they never make it.
Anyway, itʼs called “The Sex & Cash Theory.” Keep it under your pillow.

How To Be Creative
Hugh MacLeod

Thinking should be done before and after, not during photographing. Henri Cartier-Bresson

The Myths of Creativity. Part 2 of 3

The Expert Myth:
When we face a tough creative challenge, we always look to those with the most expertise. The truth is that some level of expertise matters, but the most creative solutions come from those on the fringes of the subject area, who know enough to understand but not enough to block their creative thinking.

The Incentive Myth:
In organizations, if you want something done well you incentivize it. But that can get tricky when the “something” that needs to be done requires creativity. The truth is that extrinsic motivators like incentive pay have been shown to have a modest effect on creativity at best, and a negative one at worst. Creativity is driven by intrinsic motivation, and unless an incentive is aligned with our intrinsic desires, the incentive won’t have an effect.

The Lone Creator Myth:
We tend to think that great creative work happens in isolation. We envision a lonely artist slaving away in his studio. The truth is that most breakthrough ideas come from teams formed out of the right network of collaborators. Thomas Edison has a team of around 15 other inventors working alongside him on various projects. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel with the help of 13 other artists. Research shows that the best teams have a blend of long-time colleagues and new collaborators. Creativity is a team sport.

The Brainstorming Myth:
When most of us have to “think outside the box,” we resort to one method: brainstorming. The method itself has been the subject of debate for quite some time. One thing that isn’t up for debate is that brainstorming as a creative method is not sufficient by itself. The truth is that the creative process requires various stages. Almost all fixed creative methods (from creative problem solving to design thinking) involve a period of rapid idea generation, but then also allow for a time where ideas are combined and externalized. Brainstorming works to generate a list of ideas, but its what we do with that list afterward that makes the result truly creative.

The Myths of Creativity
David Burkus

Workshops

The Art of Travel Photography:
How to Create Emotionally Compelling Travel Images

Join Lorne as he teaches you the keys to creating emotionally compelling nature, landscape, people, wildlife and travel images. This limited selection of unique workshops, geared toward every participant skill level, will provide you with an exceptional learning experience in some of the most beautiful places on Earth, including Cuba and Africa. To see Lorne's entire workshop schedule for his Art of Travel Photography workshop series, please visit http://www.lorneresnick.com/workshops

Cuba Workshop

Death Valley Workshop

Monument Valley Workshop