When we think of art, we think of singularly creative people. We imagine a sculptor or a painter. We think of trouble genius or a colorful personality. But more often than not, works of creativity, especially those we might experience in our everyday life, have the hands and minds of several people mashed into the final product you see.
When I took my first self portrait of the day, I just took something from my nearby vicinity and added it to the frame. In this case, olives. Then, while looking on Flickr, I saw this photo by Jim Kirks:
Used utterly without his permission, by the way. But my point is that Jim’s photo made me think about how to do my own. Enter: Katrina. She came up with the idea of shooting my eye up close with my cameraphone such that it looked roughly in the same place as my real eye. The result:
[Update]- Steve Garfield posted this in comments to my eyeball pic:
(photo credit Steve Garfield)
Katrina’s idea was better than what I would’ve come up with on my own. But then, we got even more collaborative. She came up with a few different photos to shoot, as once Katrina gets started, things really go faster and faster into a neat direction. She did this one of herself, after doing a smiley-face one that wasn’t as visually interesting:
And then, we hit upon the idea that I like the most of the whole bunch. Katrina’s idea, of course. Here’s what happens when people collaborate:
The point is this: working solo will always net solo results. Working collaboratively will often result in bursts of creative leapfrogging, where the first idea is good, but the final idea is really interesting and inventive.
What’s your take?
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