The creative process can be boiled down to these three things:
1. intention
2. attention to detail
3. expectation of result
Intention
When I am making photographs in the field, all I have is an intention to find new compositions. The remit does not get any more detailed than that at first because ‘I won’t know what I’m looking for until I find it’ is very much the drive in any creative effort we start out in. There has to be this open-remit to consider anything as an option, but once I do find something of interest, there is an intention to make something of it.
Attention to detail
when I stumble upon something that interests me, or that I feel I wish to invest some time in making images of, then this is where attention to detail comes in. The subtle change of the tripod by a few inches that gives an improvement in the composition. The attention given to the edge of the frame and the removal of distractions around the frame. Whatever you wish to call this stage of making images, we are really giving focus to the intention.
Expectation of result
This is perhaps where ‘visualisation’ is used the most, although I think that we are visualising all the time. When we see something of interest in the field, I think we automatically cannot help but conjure up an idea in our mind’s-eye of what the final result will be like, even before we’ve approached our subject, even before we’ve set up the tripod and camera, and even before we’ve made any cursory views through the viewfinder of the camera. We are already living with a target in mind, one which is fluid, open to being re-adjusted as we find that the composition comes together in its own way.
For any creativity to happen, all three of these must happen, and all three use a varying form of mindfulness to execute.