Not all creative challenges are a direct call to action...some are about input as well. Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is a painting done in 1818 by Caspar David Friedrich, a German artist. It's a beautiful and romantic image of a man standing on a rocky point overlooking what seems to be miles of similar rocks and mountain tops in the distance. His back is to the viewer and yet the artist chose to make both the man and the set of rocks he's standing on the only fully saturated part of the image...so we are drawn to him and he retains a lot of visual strength. There is a peacefulness through the use of cool tones in the mid and background areas...while the foreground tones are warm and feel more human.
What's really interesting about this painting, in a larger context, is how many times you've seen it without ever being aware of it. There's a great set of referenced images on this Wiki-link that show the influence this painting has had on popular culture. Art History can be a wonderful reference and resource for us...so today's exercise is about doing a little bit of input, thinking about various types of images and how you might draw upon them to enrich your own image-making process. I'm having you look at painting because it's close enough to photography to be readily understandable and applicable.
I've put together a series of searches to get you started. When you do your own searches, remember when you "google" something, you then click on "images."
Sublime Painting (if you don't add the painting part you get a very different search!)
Gothic Painting
Andrew Wyeth
If you've just joined us, February is a 28 day creativity challenge with a new "prompt" each day to get you thinking in new ways. The goal is to just have fun, don't try to control too much, feel free to use a cell phone or any camera that's easy for you. Don't worry about the end results. With each prompt you can take it literally or not, you can wing it, google it, ask for people's opinions...whatever you want to do is perfect. Bottom line - it's supposed to be fun, there are no right or wrongs.
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