Darkrooms Uncovered - Kees Molders
A peek into a photographer's mental creative darkroom
What does your creative ritual look like? Do you have specific habits or conditions that spark your creativity?
I don't have a creative ritual, nor do I believe in its effectiveness. As if an action or habit can trigger creativity by magic. I congratulate people who can, but I fail in ‘deciding’ or wishing that I am going to be creative. Besides, you can only conclude in retrospect whether someone is creative. Encouraging someone to be creative has a smothering effect on someone's creativity, in my opinion. Creativity either comes - or it doesn't. All in all, I don't really like the term. It's a vague commodity, creativity. I looked up the definition to refresh my memory: Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable ideas or works using one's imagination. This suggests that you cannot summon creativity, but can only work (hard) and stimulate your imagination. That is the solution, I think.
When you're feeling creatively blocked, what's your go-to method for breaking through?
Sitting quietly by my bookshelf and flicking through photo books. Wondering what it is about certain pictures or photographers that appeals to me.
Describe a moment when your creative perspective shifted dramatically. What triggered it?
I am not a professional photographer who relies on commissions for income. At one point during a meeting of my photo club, I realised that a certain photo-assignment did not mean anything to me, that I did not see what to do with it. At that moment I decided never to photograph on assignment again. A commission is only workable if it is clearly a good idea that I should have thought of myself ;-)
What recurring themes or elements do you find yourself naturally drawn to capture?
Cityscapes, ‘vedute’, spaces, topographics. And scenes that show what people do with their environment, how they change the natural world. And the opposite: wildly rugged or neglected places where people have had no apparent planning influence.
What non-photographic influences (books, music, films, etc.) most impact your work?
Apart from photo-books? Museums. Slow walks and bike-tours in the country. Walking in cities, ignoring the obligatory tourist-attractions, meandering through residential districts, looking at peoples everyday routines and occupations.
What photograph of yours feels most personally revealing, and why?
A recent photo I took on a square in Rotterdam, next to a cinema. We see a children's fair, the cinema advertising the film Warfare, urging (in Dutch) to ‘enjoy an unprecedented experience’. No in-depth personality analysis here, just an ironic sense of absurdity.
Find out more about Kees Molders
Website: www.fotocode.nl (in Dutch)
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