Reflective Essay:
Amy Tan – Where does creativity come from?
The Ted Talk featuring Amy Tan was interesting and abstract. She used her own personal feelings and experiences to fuel her imagination to create settings as well as characters for her novels. Her outlook on luck, chance and mysticism was refreshing and out of the ordinary. Losing her father and brother to brain tumors at a young age was an extremely tragic event that shaped the way she looks at the world. Instead of obsessing over the reason for their untimely deaths, she used that sad event to help her better understand the seemingly random coincidences of life. Ms. Tan gave vividly compelling insight into the seemingly random places her mind found that creative spark. I especially liked how she ended the presentation by opening a black bag and revealing her “muse” a small Yorkie.
Flusser Vilem – The Photograph
The essay shows the two opposing forces of Human and machine. Humans attempting to tame the machine and extract a beautiful, thoughtful, well composed image from a hunk of metal. The machine is simply trying to record the most refined image and accurate reflection of whatever happens to be in front of the lens as the shutter snaps open and closed. Mr. Vilem goes on to talk about the struggle of the critic to decode photographs and discern the photographer’s true intention as well as the desired effect they want the image to have on the viewer. He presents each photograph as a competition between the camera and the photographer to leave their imprint. Vilem romanticizes the photographers’ efforts to inject a bit of self into each picture and bend the will of the machine to depict their interpretation of the world. He believes this clash fuels the technology, which furthers the camera to achieve its ultimate goal of taking a more honest photograph.