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    To me, creativity means to use different, unorthodox, inspired; perhaps even radical techniques and methods to create any--and I mean any--artistic piece that is capable of solving a problem, even if that technique or method may require minimal or immense refining in the future. As such, we must ask ourselves what is considered an artistic piece. According to Google (reliable source, I know), art is defined as “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” This confines art to very few parameters, meaning that art really can be anything. It’s everywhere we look. Art can be something as simple as the painting in your hallway, or as complex as the languages of the world (besides, Language “Arts”; why else would it be called that?). It’s everywhere. It’s practically unavoidable, because nearly every human endeavor in history, whether it was a positively or negatively impacting one on humanity, required some sense of human creativity and imagination.

    As a student who has already divulged deeply into the various forms of modern art such as graphic design, photography, and videography, I have always been pushed to use my creativity immensely. In most situations, that involved capturing an audience’s attention through how effectively shapes and text are placed on a poster, or the shot list that makes up a film’s script. Shooting a video, designing a logo, taking a picture that represents an even bigger message; they are all integral parts to both my education and future career. It’s the way in which my creative side is expressed; through the visual arts. I started very small, with just a free program called Inkscape to design basic vector graphics. On the side, I was taking pictures with the measly cameras that phones of 2012 had (low quality, I know, but often times, it’s not the equipment; it’s the user). That was soon translated into photo editing, an integration between photography and graphic design. Soon enough, I began filming, editing, making videos; arguably the integration of the other two I’d previously already had been doing. To say that I had mediocre equipment possible to create all of these artistic pieces would be an understatement; but I made do with what I had and progressed it over time, no matter how slow it would take to export an image or render a video, because with each of them I wanted to make something that would evoke an emotion in a person, serve as a public service announcement, or simply entertain.

    Throughout the entirety of my middle school and high school career, creativity and time has allowed the portfolio of designs, photos, and videos of mine to flourish immensely. Each of these pieces among the collection I’ve amassed over the years expresses an individual message. Some blunt, some vague, but all solving the problem of how and where I should channel my creativity. Should be pretty easy to figure out; it’s as many letters long as the number of paragraphs within this essay--art, in the visual and digital form. It’s both figuratively and literally the road in which I wish to take and have been taking ever since the day I learned to use computers. It’s how my creativity is expressed, and after learning so many new things from countless mentors both online and offline, it’s become the second language I speak in.

Things to consider: What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem?