Can dinner give you a creative kick in the pants?

In the winter, after business has slowed, and when the weather is crappy many of us tend to get in a creative funk (as noted eloquently a couple of years ago by Photographer Zack Arias).  Inspiration seems hard to find in the dull rainy days of  January.  My summer work is long gone, my winter ski photography season is not up to speed, and I have a lot of time to sit around the office, and worry about how I'm not getting anything productive done .

Last year was better, the Winter Olympics were here, and there was lots of cool and interesting work for an architectural photographer.  This year, not so much.  I have been spending my time working on a website re-vamp, organizing photo archives, getting offended over taxes and budgets, but not shooting, or doing anything else creative really.

But this isn't really a post about photography.  Today I'm just talking about inspiration.

I was driving home from approving some test prints from "the LAB" in Vancouver, thinking about how miserable the weather was and listening to the CBC.  About half way home a documentary piece came on the radio.  It was about the origin of pasta in Italy, recordings of Italian Mamas talking about making pasta by hand, and making fun of North American macaroni and cheese.  They were talking about making sauces, and using a few simple ingredients to create the best meals.  I'm a huge pasta fan, and soon my mouth was watering.

It reminded me of when I was in Italy a few years ago, and I had quite possibly the best restaurant meal of my life, home made Gnocchi Pomodoro.  It was simple, elegant, and delicious.  I was in a tiny restaurant, which in all fairness was actually just over the border in the Italian part of Switzerland, in a place called San Nazzaro.  This part of Switzerland pretty much is Italy, but with better chocolate for desert.  I was in a tiny, quaint little restaurant they call a "Grotto".  The place literally had 4 tables for two, that's it.  It was like eating in someones living room, and the service was like they had know you forever too.

Back to reality, I was driving a curvy mountain road in the sleet, slush and snow.  But I was inspired now, I wanted that meal again. I wanted that delicious hand made experience. I wanted some Gnocchi Pomodoro!  I have never made gnocchi pomodoro, but that wasn't going to stop me now. I pulled into the grocery store on the way home and picked up some roma tomatoes, some herbs ans spices, an onion, and some fresh but packaged gnocchi (best I could do on short notice).  By this time I was excited, I skimmed some recipes on the interweb, and got to work.

I grilled the tomatoes, chopped the spices, boiled the pasta, and assembled a very respectable and yummy replica of my great italian meal.  I queued up an episode of Mad Men (which inspires me in many ways) and felt the need to enjoy my gnocchi with a cocktail.  It was awesome.

Here's the lesson I learned:  Inspiration is everywhere.  If you are focusing to hard on trying to come up with inspiration for photography (or web design, or video, or story ideas, or anything)  you can easily miss everything else that is going on.  I didn't wake up and plan to get excited about making dinner, but it happened when I least expected it.  Today someone else's inspiration (to produce a radio piece about pasta) inspired me to try something new, and now I will apply my new experience to what I do in the future.  If you drink in the experience and passion of others, and combine it with your own you can find inspiration anywhere, even in your dinner.

Once I started cooking, my internal photographer took over, and so I have images to share.

Here is my un-authentic, but quite good recipe for...

Rustic Gnocchi Pomodoro (feeds 2)

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 - palm sized roma tomatoes
• 1 - small onion
• some - mushrooms (I used white button shrooms, but get creative)
• Basil, Oregano, Parsley - put in what you like, I like lots
• Salt and pepper
• Olive Oil
• Gnocchi (I used a package of soft fresh gnocchi I got form the grocery store, or if you are really inspired, make your own!)

GET COOKING!

1. Slice the 6 tomatoes in half and place them on a cooking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle with Olive oil, and bake in the over at 375° for about 40 minutes.  If you find tomato seeds too bitter, take the seeds out before roasting.
2. Finely chop the onions and sweat them in a pan until they are clear
3. Finely chop the mushrooms and add them when the onions are ready (I like to add a bit of wine to de-glaze the pan, and cover to soften the onions and shrooms)
4. When your tomatoes are ready, put a pot of water on for the gnocchi, add a small handful of sea salt to the water.
5. Take the tomatoes out to the oven and carefully peel off the skins, they should com off quite easily. (careful, they're hot!)
6. Add the tomatoes and some chopped herbs, and a dash of salt and pepper to the onions and mushrooms, smash the tomatoes with a wooden spoon and simmer.
7. When you water is boiling, add the gnocchi, when it floats, it is ready
8. Strain the gnocchi and add to the pot of sauce, and stir.
9. Serve hot with some grated parm, or pecorino cheese, and some snippings of basil.
10. Enjoy with your favourite person, or beverage... or both!

While building codes may limit what can actually be done is some places, his concept of stepping outside the box of "the expectations of others" to create is what caught my attention.

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While you hum ' The Ride Of The Valkyries' , know that I am wishing you the Happiest of Holidays, and all of the best wishes for the New Year!  Cheers!

Aside from the fact that VW seems to have mastered the purpose built viral video, this project touches on so many other points.  Not the least of which is that our environments affect our lives.  Now, I'm not saying that we should need a piano on every set of stair to keep us from getting lazy, but an example like this supports the growing trend for Architects, and Designers to really consider how people will interact with the spaces they are creating.

I take the stairs most times. Usually (and especially in airports) it's faster because there is so much less traffic, and I don't mind the exercise. But, if these stairs were on my regular commute, I would be practicing a new tune every day so I could show off on my way to the train!  Really, this is public art, but it's presented integrated into the architecture. Another great example of art meets architecture that engages the public is Cloud Gate, more commonly known as the 'Chicago Bean'.

Obviously the piano stairs were designed as marketing for VW, but while looking for an idea that would be interesting enough to go viral, they hit on a vital concept: We are connected to the places, things, and people around us. If those relationships can improve our lives and experiences, even better. So, take a look around you.

I'm not usually prone to linking to corporate advertising, but VW's 'The Fun Theory' has earned this one. Here's the link so you can follow along.  thefuntheory.com

When he had finally had enough and had been told "No" for the last time, instead of getting mad, Dave Carroll got creative.  He wrote a song, filmed a video with his band "Sons of Maxwell", and posted it online for the world to see.

Here it is:

Well wouldn't you know it, it went viral.  More than 500,000 views is 3 days, and featured on tons of blogs, and CNN, and even Fox news.  Surprise, surprise, after about 50,000 views Dave gets a call from United who wants to "make it right".  Apparently when the enitre world can see how you treat people, suddenly it matters.

I could go on about how United's response is reactive not proactive, to little to late, or mention that integrity is defined by what you do when no one is watching, not what you do when the whole world is watching.  I could also talk about how Dave taking his complaint viral really got results.  Should United Airlines have stepped up to the plate before Dave wrote his song, of course they should have, and they are now probably wishing they had. But that's not why I'm posting.

The real success here is how Social Multimedia can be an agent of change.  This is only a consumer example, who didn't see photos from the protests in Iran shortly after the election there.

There are a few key factors here, that helped Dave's video to go viral and get results.  His message was simple, "United Breaks Guitars".  He told a story that almost anyone who has to fly regularly can relate to, we can put ourselves in his shoes.  He was telling a story we all know, little guy vs corporate giant, David vs Goliath.  Not to mention a catchy tune.

Here's the thing, his video will work.  Most likely it will work in ways he never expected.  Sure thousands if not eventually millions of people will hear his story and say "shame on United".  He will likely get compensation from United for his Guitar, what he wanted in the first place.  He has been inundated with inquiries about his music. But, the most important and most powerful result will likely be United's long term response.  The company said this:

"Dave Carroll's excellent video provides United with a unique learning opportunity that we would like to use for training purposes to ensure all customers receive better service from us."

United either has some excellent PR people that should perhaps be transferred to the Customer Service Department to do some training, or they are actually going to do something about the way they deal with customers.  Image how many complaints a day a company like United Airlines gets. They have opportunities daily to implement positive change in their customer service, but it takes a viral county music video complaint shown to the world, and a PR catastrophe for them to really take a look at themselves and think about change.  THAT'S the real power of Social Multimedia.  Let's hope they follow through!

ps. I learned about "United Breaks Guitars" from a Twitter post by David Meerman Scott.  I recently read Scott's book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR" a fantastic insight into the growing importance of new media in marketing, and PR through interactive customer feedback.

Well, it happens that  a few days ago I was in a real funk.  I couldn't get motivated to slog through the pile of office work I had stacked in my in-box, or the editing waiting for me in the depths of the hard drive.  I find that times like these, when I ' not being very productive anyway are perfect times to get out an revive the creative juice flow by trying to shoot something new.  My subject of choice is usually some type of abstract nature.  The weather was lousy,  gray and overcast with a little bit of rain.  Not perfect landscape shoot weather, but then again, is there ever such a thing as perfect landscape weather?  Suddenly I remembered the B+W 110 3.0 (10 stop Neutral Density filter) I bought months ago.  I have been meaning to try it out for ages, it's still in the box. It's just the type of thing that would lend itself to shooting on a less than perfect day.  The filter would allow me to to take quite long exposures (2 minutes I discovered) which would blur the clouds, and water, while stationary objects remained sharp. All of a sudden, the funk was gone, replaced by creative excitement.

here are a couple of the results...

This is the Squamish Estuary, looking south towards the ocean

The same estuary area, looking east towards the Stawamus Chief, the second largest granite monolith in the world (Gibraltar is 1st)

I had planned to go to the old docks by the ocean too, but I got so into it at the estuary that I ran out of daylight.  The sky even co-operated a bit, and opened some late in the day blue patches, providing me with some interesting cloud movement.  Exposures were f22 @ 2 min.

No matter what your creative outlet is, taking some time to do something just for yourself always energizes. Write a poem, or a song, design you ultimate kitchen, paint, take some photos, whatever gets your mind going.  After this little selfish outing, I came back to the office refreshed, and was able to tackle my work with enthusiasm.  I also have a couple of new pieces that will likely end up on my wall.

Get out there and do something for yourself!

The time lapse sequence was photographed the Sasquatch Music Festival, this year on May 24th.  It's a shot of the Main Stage at The Gorge Amphitheater, in Washington State.  Probably the best place in the entire world to see an outdoor concert. 

They were pretty particular at the festival about what you can take in, no tripods.  So, my camera (10mp Canon A640 point and shoot) was rested in the crook of tree for about 45 minutes to shoot the series of photos.  The Canon is running the CHDK firmware hack which allows it to run user programmable scripts like an interval timer.  The camera was shooting 1 frame about every 4 seconds using the script.

The tree was moving a bit due to fairly significant winds that blow up the gorge which is why the footage is a bit shakey, the frames didn't line up perfectly.  A tripod whould have been much better.  I added the "Tilt Shift" effect to each frame using Photoshop batch processing, and assembled the sequence and added the pan and zoom in Adobe After Effects.

One of the benefits of of shooting time lapse photos with the A640 is the the 10mp resolution allows me to shoot each frame large enough to assemble the final video in HD, and it's compact, so I can take it anywhere.

I'll be experementing more with time lapse photography, so stay tuned for more clips in the future!

While they say the policy has always been in place, they are now putting it in writing, and enforcing it. Nice of them to bring thier policies in line with Canadian law, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The issue came to a head when Vancouver Province news photographer Jason Payne was roughed up, and had his camera taken by police while photographing a Police shooting incidnet. In fairness to the Police, they did apologize shortly after the seizure.  This comes on a long string of bad press for Vancouver area Police made famous by the RCMP Robert Dziekanski tazer death at the Vancover Airport.  The video of that incident was surrendered to Police on scene who promised to return it in 48 hours.  Then they changed their minds, and the videographer Paul Pritchard had to retain a lawyer to get it back.

The announcement of Vancouver Police to update their camera seizure policy is a big step in the right direction.  I'm not a press photographer, but this is a victory not just for the freedom of the press, but for all Canadians.  Everyone has the right to take photos of Police officers at work, or anything else that happens in public. Compared to what's going on in the UK where police can arrest anyone with a camera if they have a "suspicion" that the photos may be used for any type of terrorist purpose.  It's a very vague and dangerous law as far a free speech goes. Especially when many authorities think they can tell you to stop taking photos for any reason.

The Vancouver policy comes on the heels of a New York City announcement of a similar reminder to Police that people are allowed to take photos in public (by the way if you want to waste some time and get angry, hang out at the "Photography is not a crime blog" for a while!)

It's good to see that at least some Police Departments are doing the right thing, and reminding their officers of our freedoms.  Let's hope other jurisdictions follow their lead.