Creativity makes a difference

Journal for Quality and Participation, The, Jan/Feb 1999 by Jones, Dewitt

My attitude changes so dramatically when I work from the perspective of "more than one right answer." First, I don't stop at the initial right answer. The initial right answer is just doing my job. Anyone in a leadership position ought to be able to come up with one right answer.

But-and here's the key-as I look beyond for the next answer, I do so not in terror, but comfortably, knowing that it will be there. When I walk into the forest with my cameras, nature doesn't say, "There is one great photograph hidden here. One photographer will find it and be the winner. The rest will fail!" No, what nature seems to be saying is, "How many rolls of film do you have, Dewitt? I'll fill them all with right answers!"

Looking at the world from this perspective, I find myself working from an attitude of abundance rather than one of scarcity; from a posture of cooperation rather than one of competition. I celebrate change rather than fear it, and I become more and more comfortable with reframing problems into opportunities. Creativity's foil

Believing there's more than one right answer certainly helps me achieve that creative attitude. Yet, if I'm going to be successful in maintaining it, I know it must be coupled with another lesson: Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

Fear of mistakes is the single greatest enemy of the creative spirit. It haunts me in my business dealings and relationships; it stands at my shoulder every time I raise the camera. Constantly it intones, "Don't take the risk. Don't try something new. Do it the way it's always been done." Again, it's my photography that shows me the foolishness of this kind of thinking.

The average National Geographic article is shot in 400 rolls of film. Four hundred rolls! That's over 14,000 photographs to get the 50 or so that make up an article. If I worried about making mistakes, I'd simply have to give up the profession. Time and again I've found that it's the ability to risk possible failure that has led me from a good shot to an extraordinary one.

Consider the top photo on this page. The famous French photographer, Cartier-Bresson, talked about finding the "decisive moment" in photography. This is the "indecisive moment." My wide angle lens distorts the girl's feet till they're as big as her face. Her face is frozen at a particularly unflattering moment. The background is overexposed.

If I were afraid to make mistakes, this is the kind of failure that would make me pack up my cameras and never take them out again. In my photography, however, I'm not worried about making a few mistakes. I'm looking for that next right answer. Something was exciting me about this situation. I kept at it. A little while later the young lady (who just happens to be my daughter) fell asleep, and with a few more intermediate attempts, I found this vision of innocence and beauty in my next photo.

This is a vision worth capturing. Yet, if I were afraid to make mistakes-if I wouldn't take the risk and try something new-I'd still be back with the first image wondering why it didn't work.