Design by Kyle Hepworth

In my “real life” I’m a graphic designer, which in many ways is a very similar occupation to being a commercial photographer. It’s client-driven work and you’re working directly with the image of another entity, so there’s always a bit of give-and-take. Part of the creative process from the perspective of working for a client is getting good Creative Direction. Think of Creative Direction as the road-map for the project. It helps to keep you on track and not to get side-tracked by all the different possibilities, and it’s absolutely critical for a project where you’re working with a team, rather then in a one-on-one situation (and I highly recommend it even in those situations).

I fell into this pitfall recently where I was asked to build a Flash program for a client. Up-front I asked for a set of story-boards, or at least a mock-up of exactly what I needed to deliver at the end. This was a rush-job and the timeline was rather short, hence the reason I was brought in at all. I was never give a design file that showed what I needed to deliver. Instead I was given several different pieces with the implication that I could put it together from them. Because of the tight time-frame I made a critical error and decided to proceed without the roadmap based on what I understood of the project. When I delivered the project with some time to spare there was a confusion about what was included in the project and what wasn’t, which caused several hours of panic before we figured out a good resolution to the project. An important lesson here is that blame doesn’t just rest on the person overseeing the project, but at every level of the team everyone needs to be sure at the outset that everyone is on the same page. The fault was just as much mine as anyone else’s.

Some people confuse having Creative Direction with being turned into a technical shooter and sucking all the creativity out of a job. I disagree with this view. There certainly are some folks who take giving Creative Direction to the extreme of controlling every aspect of the shoot away from the photographer (or other creative), but truly good Creative Directors know that to get the best work from their team they need to trust in their team to produce and they’re just there to make sure we end up where we’re aiming to go.

A good example of Creative Direction is for an ad campaign I shot recently for a local non-profit, 1in4wa.org which is raising awareness of the non-theist community. They laid out their central message for me as well as several different examples of the “scenes” they wanted to shoot. We brainstormed ways of improving the message to make it tighter and stronger, and then laid out a plan to shoot 4 of the scenes all in one day at 2 main locations (we ended up only shoot 3 due to staffing issues). Having the roadmap there, knowing the aspect ratio of the final campaigns and roughly how the text was laid out let really helped me organize the scene in my head, and far from constraining me, it really helped set me free. I could focus on directing my models, getting the emotions, and finding the right locations and angles. I didn’t have to worry so much about the technical. I took some on-the-set Creative Direction but on-set my role was switched. On-set I’m the Creative Director because the project manager trusted that I knew the requirements and that our visions were in sync.

You’ll be able to see the rest of those ad campaigns as soon as I’m release to put them out there!

It’s been years since I’ve shot with the wonderful Helene Hawthorne’s clothing. One of my favorite shots, The Witch features her designs and I’ve been wanting to shoot again with her for a long time. She wanted some photos of her new tutus for her Etsy store, so we worked out a trade! Here’s the first couple of shots for your enjoyment!

I’m thrilled that Helene introduced me to the wonderful Shonna, who is the model featured in these photos. She’s a great gal, and a real trooper, shooting in my cold studio space. She’s fantastic, moving fluidly between poses in between shutter clicks and bringing some great ideas to the table. I had a blast working with her and can’t wait to do some more work with her.

And check out Helene’s designs over at her Etsy Store. They’re fabulous!

I’m going to be taking a few days off on the blog because we’ve got some friends and old college roomates in from town that we haven’t seen in 9 and a half years. Here’s a photo from that era of my wife (then girlfriend), our friends Val, Audrey, and Nina, and me (the gormless looking fool in the upper-right). We’re going to spend a few days getting reacquainted, and take some time off work and explore the city together.

What does this have to do with Creativity? Well, nothing really. I could argue that we never explore the city in our day to day lives, and showing friends from out of town really forces me to see the city with fresh eyes. And that’s a good lesson in creativity. So go out there and look at your town, your city, your neighborhood like a tourist, and find something cool and interesting.

Part of the wonderful thing about finding inspiration is that you never know where you’ll find it. A little while ago my wife and I were at Cupcake Royale up on Capital Hill where I encountered the wonderful work of Joe Garber, a series he called Demons which I love. I believe it’s only up until Tuesday, so go check it out tomorrow before he’s off on his European tour. I love his ideas and his use of color and texture and shapes. The whole thing really resonated with me with his human/animal amalgams.

I actually contacted Joe about being part of my Portrait of the Artists and we had a fun photo session last week. Those images to come, but I wanted to feature him today for Inspiration Sundays.