Creativity Sits in the Palm of your Hand
- Rikki Neukom
- Jan 20
- 7 min read
It was later in the morning when I approached my front door and keyed in the code to unlock it. I braced myself as my border collie/heeler mix dog, Kona, greeted me as if I had been gone for weeks and not just over an hour. I gave her a good pet while a bit of a guilty feeling came over me, knowing that I hadn't taken her for a walk yet. "Ok Kona. Let me just get settled and I will take you for a walk." I said as I finished scratching her belly. She knew the word "walk" very well.
As I put my things away and began to get dressed for the January day, Kona laid close staring intently at me, waiting for the signal of "Let's Go!" I put on her harness and leash, I grabbed my camera and we headed out the door.
Ah sun. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. The temperature was just above 0 degrees. A beautiful January day in Alberta. We had a chinook pass through the last few days warming our hearts and melting the snow that had fallen in December. What snow was left was not the nice kind. Patches here and there of packed down white'ish dirty snow with a layer of ice crust over top. The grass that was exposed was brown and not so pretty with dead leaves and brown withered up old flower seeds popping up here and there. I do love the warm days in January, but it is too soon for Mother Nature's magic of spring with green sprouts emerging from the ground. She still needed her sleep.
We carefully walked along the sidewalk, trying to avoid the black ice or carefully walking over it. The road was worse. As the old saying goes "it was like a skating rink." However, the sun felt good. We had gone through a grey and white spell where there was no blue sky or sun to be seen. It did bring some beautiful hoar frost days where everything was covered in white. A winter wonderland.
But too many days like that, for me, loses its magic. I need sun.
We walked for a while and the trees around me seemed empty. Not a peep of a bird. Not even a chickadee. I thought for sure that I would see some of our winter birds busy in the sun. Well, they weren't where I was.
We walked along the path by the river. Kona happy with all of the smells around her, I felt like she was stopping every few feet just to get a whiff of what was there or who had been there. As I looked ahead I tried to decide which direction to go. Through the forest? Across the bridge and continue up the river? Or, head to the other side and walk back home? I decided to take the pathway through the forest. However, Kona wanted to go a different direction and explore off path through the forest. I was game. We walked along the hard packed snow and then sometimes sunk in where we had hit a soft spot. It was loud and crunchy with each step. I tried to walk on the exposed areas of grass and dirt, knowing my chances of slipping and falling on my butt were slim there than on the snow. It wasn't that pretty. I felt like there wasn't much to see. That's when I realized it might be good practice to tune in and find some beauty.
I didn't feel like pulling out my big camera, so I grabbed my phone. I had just purchased a "new to me" phone a couple of weeks back because I had smashed my screen on my old phone and it wasn't worth fixing. The salesman told me that this was the phone for me because I loved taking pictures. So, I decided to put his sales pitch to the test. I decided to look for bits of nature around me that caught my eye. I used the sunlight as a guide noticing as it highlighted different dead leaves in the snow or old seed pods that remained sturdy and standing tall. I love working with the harsh sunlight when taking pictures of small things in nature. It acts like a spotlight.
While using my camera phone I was thinking of the people who told me they loved to take pictures but didn't have a fancy set up.
Creativity Sits in the Palm of your Hand
Phones on cameras are getting better all of the time. My new phone is a Samsung S23 Ultra, which is maybe a bit over the top with its fancy camera features but for me it was refurbished and not that much more expensive than another 2023 refurbished phone.
Instead of scrolling on your phone looking at other people's pictures you have the opportunity to shut that app down, open up the camera and take your own pictures and document life around you. You can easily get creative just by taking a few moments longer to see if you can get a better composition. This is what I did in 2020 before I bought my mirrorless camera, 5 years ago this month in 2021. I mindfully started taking pictures of nature and the world around me, intentionally setting up the photo with a composition in mind.
What is composition?
Google says "Photo composition is the intentional arrangement and organization of visual elements (subjects, lines, shapes, colors, space) within a photograph's frame to create a compelling, aesthetically pleasing, and meaningful image that guides the viewer's eye and tells a story. It's the art of "putting things together" in a way that enhances impact, balancing the subject with negative space using principles like the Rule of Thirds or leading lines, even when breaking traditional guidelines."
So, what does that mean? Pick a subject and take a picture of it located right in the middle of your screen. Then move your camera so the subject is on the left, or the right. Does it bring a different mood or feeling to the picture just by making that minor adjustment? Or, you can do this later, like I did below, cropping the image in your editing app and see what works better for you.
When I tap on my phone screen a line will appear giving me the opportunity to make the picture a bit lighter or darker exposure than the phone automatically chooses. Your phone camera will most likely have an option for you to set your own manual settings for pictures, allowing you to be more creative. I would recommend going on YouTube, enter your phone's information and research even the basics of what your camera can do. There are probably more options than you ever dreamed of. You would quickly realize that creativity sits in the palm of your hand.
If the pictures still needs a bit of tweaking you can go into your gallery and edit them. You can crop the picture to create a tighter image. You can get rid of little items that maybe are distracting.
You can play with the shadows to make them brighter or darker. You could even turn the picture into black and white by taking out the saturation. You can also do this by using your preset filters that are available to you.
Have fun and go through the filter menu with one of your pictures and see the different artistic looks your picture could take on. Again, go on You Tube and you can learn very quickly how to use your editing tools on your phone.
I highly recommend to take time and play around with your settings. If you don't like what you did, you can always "revert" back to the original.
If you prefer learning in person, I am sure you can find a workshop in your community.
Just by making a few small adjustments to clean up an image, take away little bits in the picture that are distracting, fix the lighting, I bet some of those images could be print worthy!
This whole idea is to just get out and play and get creative. The more you practice the more it makes sense.
The Walk
I spent over a half n hour just exploring this little area in the forest seeing some beauty. This time of the year I find it is more about textures, patterns and the use of light.
I did pull out my big camera as I spent a long time watching a Mother Northern Flicker cleaning up the leaves and cobwebs of an old nest high in a tree, probably preparing for the babies to come. If I had not decided to just tune into the nature around me, taking it slow and exploring, I wouldn't have had the entertainment of watching this flicker. I would have passed her on by.
What about Kona? Well, in these quiet areas of the forest she enjoys the smells around her and she will also just lie down in the snow and patiently wait for me as I take pictures. She's actually quite patient with me in this environment. As long as there are no distractions like dogs and people, her made up job of thinking she needs to protect me takes a back seat.
By the time I had reached home it was an hour and a half later. I certainly received a good spoonful of fresh air. I also found some beauty that made me smile and added a dose of joy to my heart.
Have a beautiful day.
For more stories please check out my Substack Account where I write weekly posts about a picture I took and how it came to be.
If you are on Instagram I invite you to follow me along there where I post several times a week pictures of moments in nature www.instagram.com/rikki_neukom_photography
Interested in purchasing some of my photos. You can go online to my website www.rikkineukom.com/shop-1 . I will be updating products in the spring but I still have many items left over from Christmas.
Stay tuned, I am putting together a webpage where you can purchase my pictures in various print formats. It will be easy to order and they will ship directly to your home. This should be up and running by the end of January (cross fingers)
Thank you!
Rikki
Now get out there and take some pictures ;-)
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