On Exercising Your Creativity Muscle and The Lemon Cake Hustle

If you're a regular reader of this column, you'll know that one of the skill-building tools
that I advocate is that of either participating in, or giving yourself, photographic assignments to help develop your photographic and 'seeing' abilities. In this column I'll share a couple of things I recently participated in and what I learned from them. I would usually give a heads-up here or on my photo blog, but I found out about these on very short notice.

The first opportunity I took advantage of was sponsored by the New York Times blog -Lens - which covers photography, video and visual journalism. They sponsored A Moment in Time- A Global Mosaic with the goal to produce a web-built image of one moment in time across the world.0

What was required that you take one image on Sunday, May 2, at exactly 1500 hrs UTC (which was 9am PST for me), and then upload it to them. Anyone, anywhere could participate--amateurs and professionals- kids and adults. The topics were varied: Religion Play, Nature and the Environment, Family, Work, Arts and Entertainment, Money and the Economy,Community, Social Issues. You could plan your shot according to where you were going to be on that day, at that time.

I knew I'd be at home, so I planned for the Nature and Environment category and to submit an image of one of the roses in my garden. (photo left) I also knew that at that time of day the rose garden would have strong back-lighting from the sun, creating a strong contrast that I didn't want.  So I devised a translucent scrim to use as a light filter. My scrim at the time was a large packaging bag made of bubble wrap plastic which I held in place with one hand, while shooting with the other. However, since that incident, I've been creating a more handy one using PVC pipe and rip-stop nylon, which I'll share more about in a later column.

What I learned: Since the lighting at that time was not ideal for me, I created a way to make it better, and as a result made my own portable, translucent light filter. (What's the saying--  Necessity is the motherhood of invention?) The concept is not new to me. . .this assignment made me 'just do it', and go ahead and create my own.You can check out the results of the Times mosaic here. 

The other project I took part in was 'Issue zero' of 48-hour magazine. In their own words, this was "a raucous experiment in using new tools to erase media's old limits. As the name suggests, we're going to write, photograph, illustrate, design, edit, and ship a magazine in two days." The challenge--They would announce a theme at noon on May 7th, and writers, photographers, designers, illustrators had 24 hours to do their creative thing and get it uploaded to them-- and then they (the mag editors) had 24 hours to edit, layout, and whatever else, and send off for printing.

Now this was a real challenge as you had no way to prepare for what to write about or photograph. May 7 and 8th were already going to be extremely busy days. That Friday, the 7th, I had to finish up some baking orders for Mother's Day (I also have a seasonal gourmet dessert business) a customer consultation, frame some photographs, and then an hour drive to Bible School class that evening. The next day, Saturday, I  was leaving early for a day at Calico Ghost Town to complete a photo assignment. 

So Friday morning, I had baked a sour cream lemon cake that was to be part of an auction being held at class that evening. Unfortunately, the cake did not release properly and the top of the cake stayed stuck to the top of the pan.(photo left) Though I gently chiseled it loose, it was still beyond camouflaging with icing, so I decided I'd just slice and serve it for the coffee break. At 11:40 am, I sent a text to the auctioneer  to let her know what happened with the cake and not to expect it as I didn't have the time or ingredients to make another one. I still had other baking orders to package and complete, along with everything else.

About 12:13pm, I got the email announcing the theme of the magazine, and the theme was Hustle."   Hustle- a verb and noun.(Anyone remember the dance? Am I dating myself?) I thought to myself-- if I hustle, I can make another cake. And that's what I did. . .a photo essay of the hustle to make another lemon cake, in the midst of everything else I had to do. (Included 3 of the photos: cake before/after;  buying more ingredients).  

To complete the essay it was also important to have a photo of the cake at the auction. I wrote the essay as a time narrative, which did not  end until 1:49 am Saturday morning. I had to write, edit, and get the essay uploaded when I returned home from class late that night (11:40pm). Finally got to bed around 2 am, only to discover at 6am that Saturday morning that there was a glitch on the magazine website and my photos didn't upload.

So I had to spend the time to do it all over again before leaving that morning for my Saturday event. Now since my topic was a rather mild one using the theme of "Hustle," I'd be surprised if they use my photo essay in the magazine. But I learned to even more quickly assemble things I needed to pull this  off, along with some simple technical things with lighting I don’t normally do. I'm going to post my narrative and will let you know where to find it if you're interested. 
Cake, anyone?