PhLB - Luc Boonen's most appreciated articles

Much has been said about how creativity works, its secrets, its origins, and what we can do to optimize ourselves for it. In this excerpt from his fantastic 1991 lecture, John Cleese offers a recipe for creativity, delivered with his signature blend of cultural insight and comedic genius. Specifically, Cleese outlines “the 5 factors that you can arrange to make your lives more creative”: 1. Space (“You can’t become playful, and therefore creative, if you’re under your usual pressures.”) 2. Time (“It’s not enough to create space; you have to create your space for a specific period of time.”) 3. Time (“Giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original,” and learning to tolerate the discomfort of pondering time and indecision.) 4. Confidence (“Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake.”) 5. Humor (“The main evolutionary significance of humor is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.”)

To my opinion a lot of photographs get better with diminished detail, call it abstraction if you like. The art of reduction is very interesting. Try for yourself: look for images that you like where reduction or abstraction is an essential part of the image. And then imagine how they would have looked without it. No distraction, no irrelevant details, no deviation, straight ahead. The only problem is the fact that the art of reduction has a steep learning curve ........... You c…

What colour has the word black and the word white in this image? The question brings your mind in a twist, a state of cognitive dissonance. You see black where the answer should be white and v.v. Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a belief of a person clashes with new evidence perceived by that person.…

Photography is like writing, you start with an empty piece of paper, then fill it using your creativity. What is in your mind, what is on that paper, do they correspond, do they have connection? Do you start with an idea, then start writing, word for word, sentence by sentence until your story is complete? Or do you put a lot of words on that paper and start telling it is a story afterwards? Next time remember, photography can be a window to the mind! --------------------------------…

When you're at a scene, taking pictures with your camera, flashes cross your mind, busy as it is registering people, behaviour, objects, light and atmosphere. Perhaps the idea how the final image should look is already growing.

I read a story by Leon van Kemenade that really impressed me: "Like all of us I often fall in love with my own photos. I know, a bit sad. It's just that when you've found a composition that you really like, when you've got the shot you were after, when you've sweated and slaved over it in post processing (well, that might be a bit over the top), it's hard not to invest a bit too much emotional energy into an image. Usually, after a week or so, you look at it again with a little more distanc…

Some people call it abstraction, I call it dunnowhatitis. Did you ever wonder why most people try to recognize an image? Are they glad to see something familiar, rather than an abstract image? Are abstract images harder to read or is recognition a key condition to evaluate an image? It all depends on the mindset of the audience. This mindset gives priority to the characteristics of an image and to its final evaluation. To my opinion other points are more important than recognition. For insta…

Recent changes in Flickr forced a lot of people to move out, in search of better virtual places to hang around. Ipernity has a look and feel, familiar with the old Flickr. I decided to give it a try. After a few months I realise you have to build a new network from scratch, it takes time and a lot of effort. Flickr, on the other hand, corrected some of their worst mistakes, one gets acquainted to the new look. At this moment I use them both. Ipernity looks cleaner, a better platf…