creativity

Just For The Hell Of It

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I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do, what I want to do and understanding my motivations. Not sure if this is because I just turned 50 and may be having some kind of crisis. Doesn’t feel like it. I am learning how to prioritize activities and being more intentional with my time.

I enjoy writing, not just for my website, but also for my personal knowledge database. Whether it be manual scribbles or typing on a keyboard, I love writing. And for the past twenty-two years, there has always been a nagging question: “Why are you doing this?” The question always exists of “what is it for”. I wrote about this recently in fact.

Sure, Chris, you write because you enjoy writing. True.

I don’t do this for attention, money, clicks or internet fame. I’ve had all of that in the past but no longer need them.

No, my interest and motivation is solely internal. If I wanted to write to an audience, I am going to have to step up my game with relevant content and frequency. If you are still reading or have stayed with me through the years, bless you.

These thoughts give reason behind simply enjoying the process of writing instead of the results. I love writing out my thoughts and that is enough motivation to do it. Although enough of it takes place in private that hitting publish barely seems worth it at all, the process could be enough. Although it is a joy to hit “PUBLISH” and send out to the WWW.

Besides, haven’t you ever done something just for the hell of it?

Do Androids Dream Of Creating Electric Sheep?

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🤖
“I am putting myself to the fullest possible use which is all I think that any conscious entity could ever hope to do.” – Hal 9000, from 2001: A Space Odyssey 

All my life, we’ve been told that computers were incapable of being intelligent, self-aware and creative. But here we are in 2023 partnering with Artifical Intelligence in creating works of art with photographs, paintings, music composing and even creative writing.

“A dark oil painting of a space age robot smoking his tobacco pipe while working on his MacBook” Photo × DALL·E Human (me) & AI

I recently had a conversation (see below) with an artifical intelligence using ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a large-scale language model developed by OpenAI. It is based on the Generative Pre-trained Transformer architecture, which uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like text. The model is pre-trained on a massive dataset of text, allowing it to generate new text that is coherent and grammatically correct.

Me: “How would artificial intelligence become self-aware?”
Chat GPT: The question of how artificial intelligence (AI) could become self-aware, also known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), is a topic of ongoing research and debate among scientists and philosophers. There are a number of different theories and approaches being proposed, but there is currently no consensus on the best way to achieve AGI.

How very reassuring and seemingly IT wants to assuage my concerns. So I asked IT a similar question in a different context hoping for a more reassuring response.  

Me: “If computers can be creative, what else can they do that we were told they could not?”
ChatGPT: Computers have the ability to perform a wide range of tasks that were once thought to be the exclusive domain of humans. Some examples of tasks that computers can now perform include:

Image and speech recognition: Computers can now recognize and interpret images and speech with a high degree of accuracy, which has applications in fields such as computer vision and natural language processing. Computers can control robots and drones and make them perform complex tasks. It is important to note that computers do not possess consciousness or emotions, and they are not human-like entities, they simply can perform tasks that were once thought to require human intelligence, but they can do it faster, more accurately and with less error.

One of these days, I may not feel up to writing an article for this website but instead, turn to my Artificially Intelligent partner and ask her to write, edit and post. But it is not this day.

“A dark Picasso style painting of an atomic age robot typing on his iPad while smoking a tobacco pipe” Photo × DALL·E Human (me) & AI

How To Become The Great Urban Photographer

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If you loosely apply Lomography’s ten golden rules, you’ll do just fine.

  1. Take your camera with you everywhere you go.
  2. Use your camera any time, day, or night.
  3. Photography is not an interference of your life but a part of it
  4. Shoot from the hip
  5. Approach as closely as possible
  6. Don’t think
  7. Be fast
  8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured
  9. Or afterwords either
  10. Don’t worry about any rules.

Number 10 may be the most important. Don’t listen to others, stay true to yourself and your artistic endeavor. There are plenty of rules that can and should be broken.

To those 10, I’ll remind you of another 10.

  1. Luck, coincidence emergency and surprise are your friends.
  2. Experimentation is exciting. Expect the unexpected. Or don’t!
  3. Embrace the sensory effects of the street. Light, shadow, smells & sounds
  4. Leave the grind behind. Focus on you and your subjects.
  5. Street photos look better when printed. I prefer black and white.
  6. Look again. If something spots your eye, but you pass on it…go back. Your first instinct is usually correct.
  7. Let loose. Have fun.
  8. Analog or film photography is making a comeback. Buy a cheap film camera.
  9. Analog will seldom disappoint because it is unique and challenging.
  10. Trust your senses over an LCD screen and electric sensors.

Urban, or street photography, combines what I love best. Walking, working with people, courage, risk-worthy opportunities and timing. Now grab your camera and start shooting!

Homework

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“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.”

– Lawrence Kasdan

This quote could also be used for any hobby endeavor we choose such as photography, crochet, micro electronics, Ham radio, etc.

A hobbyist is constantly researching techniques, going over best practices and learning how to apply them. You don’t just sit down at your keyboard and start cranking out paragraphs without research on the topic. You learn to see the world through the lens of your hobby and wonder how your craft fits into it, or what you can glean from the world to use it. A hobbyist is always shooting, writing, sewing, tinkering and noticing. A photographer is constantly tilting their head looking for angles and composition or color coordinating. Then act on it. A writer is frequently attaching verbal descriptions to a situation and then document it.

“To write, I first must world”

– Laurel Schwulst

Any experience that can be seen as possibly mundane suddenly has meaning, such as grocery shopping, sitting in traffic or walking through the streets. This means they are alert, focused, awakened and deliberately taking their findings to be applied later as homework. Though this homework is not graded, it does help advance our self-induced education, and we are all the better for it.

A Few Thoughts On…

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  1. Creativity and imagination needs to be constantly fed.
  2. Reading is an anytime, anywhere pastime
  3. Slow down.
  4. Excuses delay the inevitable.
  5. Make time for good conversation.
  6. Apply what you know.
  7. Chase the knowledge.
  8. Organize your desk.
  9. Make yourself so good that they don’t want to let you go.
  10. You are only as good to them as your last quarter.
  11. Do or don’t.
  12. Try.
  13. Your best effort wants to come out. Give it a go.
  14. Essentialism > minimalism
  15. Personal development > formal education.
  16. Learning > formal education
  17. Moderation in all things (sugar, salt, social media, alcohol, spending)
  18. Let the tools do their job. Your brain can take care of the rest.
  19. Pen to paper > fingers to keyboard.
  20. What is your origin story? Document your progress.
  21. Change is good.
  22. Willingness to change is even better.
  23. Laughing is a habit-forming drug.
  24. No one told you because they didn’t know either.
  25. Asking is free.
  26. Doing > over-analyzing how to do it.
  27. Your thoughts are clouded and stuck in high fructose corn syrup.
  28. Youth is a feeling, not an age.
  29. Call your loved ones.
  30. Forgive yourself.
  31. Forgive them.
  32. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness > whatever else you are doing instead.

Analog Art

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Just picked up a couple of art supplies to start creating in analog as opposed to digital all the time. I have this need for a tactile experience. I am lousy and impatient but somehow feel the need to experience this. Oh, and the smell of wood and graphite when I open that tin is amazing.

Sketch Set
Watercolor Set