Creativity makes a difference

Dewitt Jones, award-winning National Geographic photographer, turns a telescopic lens on the creative process.

Making a difference. It's something we'd all like to do. To share with the world a new vision, a new attitude, a new perspective that helps lift us all a little higher.

For many of us, however, access to new visions, attitudes, and perspectives can seem frustratingly difficult. The world changes at an ever-increasing rate, and we seem barely able to keep up with it, much less find new ways to contribute.

"Be more creative," they tell us. But hey, that's not easy. Creativity is a word reserved for artists, and there's a very big difference between art and business. Art is creative; business is practical. Art is frivolous; business is serious. Art is to be indulged in only when all the "important stuff' is done; business is the "important stuff." No wonder the subject of creativity sets off a palpable uneasiness in many of us. "Hey, I've spent my career attending to business, now you want art as well?!"

Yet that is exactly what making a difference calls for. For what is creativity but the art of seeing things in a new way; the art of looking at the ordinary and seeing...the extraordinary.

The essence of creativity is not a technique but an attitude; an attitude of curiosity, openness, and celebration. An attitude that allows one to constantly see the world with new eyes. Though creativity is not a technique, I have, during my years as a photographer with National Geographic, learned a number of methods to help me access that creative state. The more I practiced them, the more I realized that these techniques apply equally well to many situations-whether I am creating a photograph, parenting a child, running an office, or serving a client. Change the challenge, the principles remain the same. Using my photographs as examples, let me share some of these techniques:

Extraordinary solutions

To find an extraordinary photograph, I first need the right lens on my camera. If I don't initially view the challenge from the right perspective, I know I don't have a chance of finding a truly creative solution.

Consider the photograph above of Yosemite Falls. It is shot with a lens that creates quite a pleasant scene. Yet as I stared through the viewfinder, I wasn't happy. I'd seen it before. The perspective offered nothing new, nothing extraordinary. Looking again, I realized that what had really drawn my eye to the falls in the first place was not this view at all. Rather, it was something at the very bottom of the frame; the juxtaposition of the single silhouetted tree and the surging water behind. I had the wrong lens-the wrong perspective-and it was keeping me from capturing the extraordinary view. When I corrected my perspective, then I found the real photograph on the next page.

This metaphor from photography helps me daily. In both the business and personal challenges I'm confronted with, my first question is, "Do I have the right lens on my own eyes? Am I looking at this from the proper perspective?" The metaphor keeps reminding me that without the right perspective, I don't have a chance of finding that extraordinary vision.

Perspective

First I find the right lens; then I have to find the right focus. What are the elements of the solution that deserve the most attention? Within that right perspective, what elements are most critical? In the photograph of Yosemite Falls, everything has to be in focus. Both the tree and the falls must be tack sharp, or you'll never see the magic of the vision. In the case of little ground squirrel on page 61, however, only one element needs to be clear. Only the squirrel is sharp, while the soft background serves as a foil to draw attention to it. Here again, I use this photographic analogy every day-- have I put the elements of the solution into the right focus? For without the right focus, the vision will always be fuzzy.

Probably the most important key to accessing my creativity, however, I found in another lesson from my photography: There's more than one right answer. It's a simple idea, but one that has radically changed the way I look at life.

Throughout our careers, we, too, often fall prey to the belief that there is only one right answer. You either have it or you don't. My own thinking often pulls me in this direction, but I find that if I look closely, it simply doesn't match up with what I see around me. As a photojournalist, I've reported on a thousand different cultures, each finding a thousand different answers to the challenge

National Geographic sent me to Smith River, California, where they raise about 80 percent of the country's Easter lilies. If you look at the three pictures on the next page, in the first I've chosen a perspective that does a pretty good job of telling that story: picked lilies, unpicked lilies, the boy picking them, a little of the region's architecture and weather. It's one right answer. As a photographer, however, I would never think of stopping here. Almost as soon as I snapped the shutter, I reached into my bag for another lens, walked over two rows, knelt down and found...another right answer. The same parameters of the problem now seen from a totally different point of view. My favorite right answer that afternoon was the last photo. They were using a helicopter in the field, I got a ride and, looking down from 200 feet, saw the extraordinary in the ordinary. Three right answers.

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.

Not being afraid to make mistakes; believing there's more than one right answer; finding the right "lens" and the right "focus." These techniques help us to touch the essence of creativity and, in doing so, allow us to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. The lessons I've learned from my photography have taught me that in reality, art and business are not so far apart.

If we let it, creativity can touch all the facets of our lives. And with that attitude of curiosity, openness, and celebration, we can truly make a difference.

Dewitt)ones is one of America's foremost photographers. His photographs appear regularly in National Geographic and two of his films have been nominated for Academy Awards. Jones is also an inspirational keynote speaker and may be contacted at DewittJ@aol. com

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