How can we still be creative?

Painted Hand in Ansazi Ruin, Mystery Valley, USA

When I came back from my trip to the Southwest USA last year I came back wondering if it's possible for any photographer to be truly creative in places that have been photographed millions of times. Then I looked at some of my images from that trip and I thought that maybe I had some that I liked and to be honest, some of them were unlike anything I had seen before regarding those places. I was happy...

Until I saw a post in Guy Tal's blog... Guy Tal is a photographer whose work I've admired for quite some time now. In this post he had a photo of a painted hand in Cedar Mesa, and even though it's in black and white, it reminded me of one of those photos I took during that trip. It's not even in the same place, mine is was taken in Mystery Valley, in an Anasazi ruin called Many Hands, during a photo trip I did with a Navajo Guide, but the resemblance in composition is pretty obvious.

Now my concern isn't really who took his photo first or if one can be considered a copy of the other. I hope Guy does not think, if he ever sees my photo, that I tried to copy from him, because when I shot this image I did not even know about Guy's photo. But this raises an interesting question: how can you still be creative today ?

I mean, one may think that he has a great photo only to know that it has been shot before. Or that someone else will shoot a similar image in the future without ever knowing that the image looks like another one that already existed.

A few months have passed and I still have no answer to this question. However, I know that it is indeed possible to be creative. That's the beauty of photography (and all art). When you think you have seen all possible angles of a subject, someone else comes and presents it to you like you had never seen before. These are the moments when I feel real joy. It's when I feel that the world is a place full of possibilities and that they're all here for us to experience in our own personal way.

So I've actually given up trying to answer the question. I just shoot what moves me, trying to be as open as I can to all those possibilities, and I hope that maybe one of those shots can one day help someone see the world a little differently.

Unknown Heroes

Two months ago I came back to Portugal from a great trip through the Colorado Plateau, in the Arizona and Utah states of the United States of America. It was an amazing trip, through six National Parks and some amazing landscapes, and I was able to take a lot of photos. My friends here loved them, they said they were amazing photographs, but the real truth is that one of the main reasons the photos look great is because the places themselves are fantastic. And the reason these places are fantastic is because lots of people care for them, and wanted to protect them.

More than one hundred years ago, some people in the USA came up with this weird idea that Nature is something that fuels our spirits. They defended that the wild places that still existed in America should be protected from commercial exploitation, and should be made public so that all people, regardless of age, religion or position in society could benefit from them. Thus was born one of the greatest ideas of America: the National Parks. And the funny thing is that all it took was people with a love for certain places and with the ideas and initiative to make things happen.

Now the photo you see in this post is not from America. It's from my own country, Portugal, from our only National Park, Geres. The reason I chose this photo for this post is because I recently found out that in my own country there are also people with this kind of initiative and driving force. In fact, I feel privileged and happy to count one such person as a friend of mine.

She's just like you and me, she has a job to where she goes to every day. However at certain times, she packs her stuff, gets in her car or in a train and travels in our country, in order to volunteer to certain nature protection activities. Whether it's helping to recover wild animals in recovery centers, or participating in reforestation activities, she does her bit. Her enthusiasm has inspired me to start helping as well in any way I can, and I am looking forward to participate in some of these activities as well. I know there are more people like her, but still I wish there were even more. These are the people that make things happen behind the scenes. It was this kind of efforts and enthusiasm that led to the creation of the National Park idea in the United States long ago.

People look at some of my photos and they see the natural beauty of the landscapes. For some time, that was all I saw as well, but now I see something more. I see these unknown heroes that have worked so hard to keep these places so beautiful. So here's to them all. Thank you for your efforts and hard work.

Pay up if you want to photograph...

This post goes a bit against the normal posts in this blog, but since it concerns a subject which is dear to me, I decided to write about it, in conjunction with other fellow photographers that will post the same content in other blogs and sites. Basically the thing is if I want to continue to take photos like the one I show you here (taken in the Alentejo Southwest Natural Park), I will have to pay. Why ? Read below...

It recently came to my attention that the portuguese governmental entity that takes care of our Natural Parks and Natural Areas (ICNB - Instituto da Conservacao da Natureza e Biodiversidade) has published a price table that targets some activities taking place in those natural areas, and photography and filiming are among those activities. Apart from being too high for most photographers and film makers, especially those that need to spend several days in a Natural Area to get images for a magazine article or a film, these fees were decided upon without taking into account the people that they would be targeting, or the people that live near those areas and want to enjoy them.

Because of this, some nature photographers, both amateur and professional, joined together and decided to write a letter to ICNB, in order to debate this issue with this Institute. The purpose of the photographers, in which I am included, is not that photography in these areas shoud not be targeted by fees, but that these fees should not be decided upon randomly, but by debating the issue with the people that work in the field. It is our belief that if the correct criteria is set for nature photography in protcted areas, then the correct fees can be established according to that criteria.

In order to be proactive rather than reactive, we decided to send the letter to ICNB about a month ago. During that time we waited for some answer that never came, and this is the reason we are now making this letter public. If you want to know its contents, you can find it here.

Nature photographers in Portugal are trying their best to bring people to our country and to have them appreciate the few natural resources we still have. If these fees for taking photos start to be enforced it will be a severe blow to some of the people who try harder to let people know about what we have in terms of natural beauty. And the saddest thing is that this blow is dealt by the entity that should do the most to protect and let people know about our natural environment.

Download the english version of the letter.