Rethinking Visualization
In my book Creative Landscape Photography, I introduce a framework for creative image-making relying on six phases. The premise is that all images begin with a Concept: a nebulous, amorphous “trigger” that sets the creative process in motion. The concept may be a thought, an emotion, a response, or a sensation that the artist experiences and wishes to express in the finished work. Once experienced, the artist’s task is to transform the shapeless, abstract concept into a visible image through the steps of Visualization, Composition, Capture, Processing, and Presentation.
The concept has no lines or colors or other physical characteristics. It is the thing instinctively recognized by the artist, commanding their attention and suggesting ulterior meaning — an intuitive sense that there’s something here worthy of further exploration. Visualization is the process of overlaying the concept with literal characteristics. By the time composition is considered, the concept already possesses visual properties (lines, shapes, colors) to be arranged within the frame, later to be captured by the camera and turned into a tangible artifact: a print or digital file. Hence the ultimate importance of visualization: it is the linchpin that ties together the intangible idea with its literal representation — the point in time where an instinctive response becomes a vision, ultimately to be expressed in a physical, shareable artifact: the finished work.
Think of the artist as having the job of bridging two worlds: one of feelings, notions, meanings, and abstractions available only to them; and one of literal objects perceptible by physiological senses that can be shared with others. Visualization is the point of translation, where a work of art assumes shape and crosses from one world into the other, to assume an independent existence in it.
Visualization, defined as the ability to see in the “mind’s eye” the finished work before making and applying technical decisions, is also the point in the creative process where images transition from the realm of the reactive and contemplative to that of the conscious and deliberate. Simply speaking, there is no way to make the transformation from thought to object without craftsmanship and skilled application of the artist’s tools.
Understanding visualization also serves to illustrate the role of tools and equipment in the creative process. Simply put: instinct, awareness, and imagination create the concept; visualization transforms it into an image; equipment makes the image tangible.
Autumn Virga (part of the Seasons on the Awapa portfolio)
Category: Featured, Thoughts and Musings
This is a great way to look at the creative process!
Reading this article is making me realize that all or most of my images are reactive to a particular landscape or lighting, where the visualization is evolved after i capture the image during the post processing phase. I am also wondering isn’t being a landscape photographer is also about expecting the unexpected where visualization needs to be formed on the fly?! Would love to know your thoughts on that.
Thank you for this piece, Guy. This article is as inspiring as ever.
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More fine thoughts on the philosophy of our art. I agree that more and more as I am out in the wilderness that I am responding to a visual and/or emotional stimulus, and my creative process starts at that point.
The toolbox of techniques I use to capture the light (Harvesting Light as I call it) – is providing me with the raw materials I will need to complete the expressive process that began with the “event” and the visualization that there was an image there, something that I could articulately “express” later in print or on the web.
I favor a three-stage metaphor – vision | harvesting Light | expression
Incorporating things like scene-evaluation as a cross-over between stages one and two.
Effective technical and artistic ability is required in all stages to be most articulate in our expression.
Great musings, and a very Happy New Year from Juanli & myself in SW China.
Thanks, everyone!
Karthick, yes indeed. Visualization should become intuitive, though it may require a significant amount of deliberate effort and practice to get to that point.
Also, as I mention in my eBooks, visualization should not become prescriptive. Creativity may strike at any time, including during processing, and if you find a new interpretation later in the process, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t re-visualize the image in a new way.
Guy