Derivative Work
Advice to students when struggling to develop work that isn’t derivative of other artists…and knowledge of photographic history.
So what is your inquiry? About what are you in doubt? You have chosen a particular tool with which to work and it will not prove to be the right tool in all cases. Employ it when it is the right tool, or use it in ways that transform it into an applicable tool. Drop the pretense that you are making a photograph or an image and begin to make expressions. Don’t be technique bound — approach each shot from outside the rut, be aware of the conventions you employ. Ultimately, you will have to first understand your teachers and then deny them in going your own way, developing your own expressions (they may not recognize value and it is certainly difficult to stand on your own). In doing so, you will find that inquiry will relieve the burden of originality. You will discover upon reflection that when you make a legitimate expression, which is the overarching objective, that the piece will stand on its own as a consequence of the process. “Legitimate” refers to having integrity in the inquiring process, being genuinely committed to exploration, to resolution, to insight into that which motivated the inquiry initially – presumably something about which you are in doubt. Without doubt, as Charles Pearce and John Dewey would say, there is no impulsion – work in the realm of beliefs about the way the world is. That is the personal aspect of the creative process, being introspective enough to recognize what needs to be investigated or made coherent and to allow it to be worked on without exercising constricting control of where it leads.