The Creative Purpose of Photography

There are some who maintain, correctly, that ‘education’ in the fullest sense is about personal improvement.

Those who promote this view suggest the conventions of social interaction have always been known, are known and will be known. These conventions include an awareness of the value of sincerity, benevolence and proper behaviour. This humanistic view ranks these values as superior to various subject skills transmitted in schools and universities.

If creativity, an essential component of personal improvement, is largely about possibilities and alternatives thinking, what ‘can be’ rather than ‘what is’, photography in its multitude of forms fits ‘the creative purpose, the enhanced ability to ’see’.

My photograph taken in Kurpių g. in late 2016 is an example of photography applied as ‘creative seeing.’

I was aware that rain would leave residual puddles in the street. My primary aim was to find reflections that appealed to me, to look for possibilities. As I walked down the street, the three men talking prompted me, in seconds, to combine the natural, architectural and human elements in a photograph that, after editing, I liked, and shared on an international website.

Of course, ‘Conversation, After Rain’ is much more than a quick shot in a Kaunas Old Town street. Creative elements, honed by time and experience also contributed to the final result; shooting in RAW format; preferring monochrome to

colour; choosing a RAW editor that offered the creative possibilities I wanted; deciding on a ’square’ format; using a small camera I could hold in one hand whose size would not disturb potential subjects… The ‘craft’ involved in mastering these

techniques is never fully learned. There has to be room for experimentation, failure, more experimentation, more failure then, often unexpectedly, occasional success. The quality of ’success’ is entirely my perception.

Doubtless, some readers will jump to the conclusion that my sort of photography, my view of my world, is entirely selfish, egocentric.

My photography is an extension of myself, my creative essence, my vision, the subjects that interest an alien in an exotic land. I am not in the least concerned about how others ‘see’ my photographs. If they find something of interest - title, subject, light, technique, tones, format… I have achieved my purpose when sharing my work. “Here is how I see a group of men in Kaunas, Lithuania, talking after rain.” My focus is on perception, what Graeme Allan ‘sees’. Creative ideas and work must be shared, and accepted, without judgement. In the photographic ‘world’ looking at how others ‘see’ is a major motivation to look at photographs.

Any photographer who edits a file, preferably a RAW file, and produces a photograph is deeply involved in looking for possibilities, developing further his personal perceptions. The photographic ‘journey’ is random. The journey does not a

routine or a programme. Likewise, photographic ‘workflow’ is entirely random, just as creative thinking is random.

My lifelong photographic journey taps into my thinking style; innovative, indisciplined, or, as some have described it in the past, ‘eccentric’.

Graeme Allan