Sunday, June 7, 2009

The Zen of Creativity

This is the first book I read in pure digital format, all the way through. One night I was having a late night IM chat that turned to the topic of the Zen of Creativity, and how strange it was that there were no books on that topic. A quick Amazon search revealed this one, and through the magic of the kindle, seconds later I was reading it. It's a very strange experience to think of a topic, and be reading a book on it seconds after that.

Anyway, the book is pretty good -- it is written by a photographer who also teaches Zen meditation. He has lots of fascinating stories -- some of my favorites involved how his emotions came out in his work in ways he couldn't see. For example, after witnessing some young teens skinny dipping, he was taking pictures of rock formations. Viewing his photos later, many people commented how erotic the rocks in the photos seemed.

I can't say I took away very much concretely practical from this book, other than a deeper appreciation that art is created with our whole mind -- but it is a light, breezy, pleasing read.

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