Maddening

There is so very much on the internet about photography, and so very much of it is technical. When I do stumble across something about the creative process, about how to inspire oneself, about how to create/find one's own style, I jump on it! It's so exciting!

And nearly every time it's some stupid horseshit about "buy a new gadget, gadgets are inspiring" or "try macro photography!" or "be a kid again!" It's almost always either advice to spend some money, or a bunch of words that really mean "the way to be creative is... be creative!"

The truth is, most of the people writing about this stuff don't have the foggiest idea how to be creative, how to fuel that inner creative beast. Mainly they don't know because they don't care. Many of them are selling something, usually some shitty class in which they'll urge you to try macro photography and tell you how to use a neutral density filter to make a really terrible landscape that looks just like theirs. The ones that are not selling something are generally gearheads making some nod toward this other thing they have heard of, which isn't gear, so ultimately whatever who cares all that much I'll just blat some crap I cribbed from someplace else.

Creativity isn't all that complicated. A few web searches on the relevant cognitive science turn up some interesting stuff, just be sure to leave any mention of photography out of it lest you wind up at some doltish web site urging you to try colored filters or HDR.