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Creative Spaces  © Wendy Folse May 3, 2002

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Whether it is a studio or just another room in the house, all artists crave space. Not just any space, but freethinking space, solitary space, space away from the distractions of everyday life. The creative mind needs freethinking space in order to create.

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Page 1: Creative Spaces  © Wendy Folse May 3, 2002

The copyright of the article Creative Spaces in Photography is owned by Wendy Folse. Permission to republish Creative Spaces in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.   Page 1  

Creative Spaces © Wendy Folse

May 3, 2002

Whether it is a studio or just another room in the house, all artists crave space. Not just any space, but freethinking space, solitary space, space away from the distractions of everyday life. The creative mind needs freethinking space in order to create.  

I think that the most fascinating thing about creative minds is their innate need to release the steady stream of uninhibited brain chatter that so often stays bottled up in most of us. Solitary spaces allow us to be free to let go of these thoughts, to let them flow, and dance and sing and play themselves out in whatever medium we have chosen to work.  

Finding the time and space in which to create may be as simple as cleaning out a walk‐in closet or as difficult as hiring a carpenter to build an additional room. But there is no denying the fact that solitary space is a necessity in order to facilitate the creative process.  

For me there is nothing more exhilarating than spending several quiet hours alone in the inky blackness of my darkroom. After years of doing color processing, the dark became my friend, my solace, and my companion. Even now, I often prefer the total darkness even if I am working in black and white. With the lights off, my hands have to find their way around in the repetitive motions that tend to soothe the conscious mind, thus allowing my subconscious mind the freedom to roam and explore. In other words, to create.  

When I am writing, I still prefer to do so alone out on my patio with a cool breeze blowing and the tools I choose are always paper and pen versus a keyboard. There is something about a computer that I find extremely distracting. Don't get me wrong, I am very computer literate and have a background in computer graphics. In fact, my computer is used as a virtual hub in my home for everything from research for the kids homework to online banking.

However, when I am writing, the monitor to me is like a beacon of distraction. I have heard others complain of the same thing. It is like your internal editor is always there reading the screen, waiting for a chance to interrupt. Granted that with spell checkers and word processing software, it makes it easier to ignore the ever-critical internal pest, but I would rather avoid him at all cost. For me paper and pen allow me to escape to my solitary space where I can create in peace.

As a burgeoning or fledging photographer, learn to carve out your own solitary space. Make it a place where you can think, study, read, take notes, or just sit with a stack of your own photos and learn to be critical of them after the fact. Be critical of the process not yourself. Learn from your mistakes.

Even if you do not, at this point wish to build a complete darkroom, you still owe it to yourself to carve out your own creative space. Photography can be an overwhelming subject to tackle for the beginner with its seemingly mind-boggling jargon of numbers and technical data. Creating a solitary space where you can be alone to think will give you the freedom to process the technical material while still being free to explore the creative process to its fullest.