I think a new idea that is not dangerous or troubling to somebody is not worth of being called an idea at all.

For the past few days, I’ve been experimenting with my new daguerreotype Lens, my Achromat 2.9/64 from Lomography.

It is an updated version of the first optical lens used to take photographs in the 1830’s, and has been widely praised by photographers for its soft focus, otherworldly quality and dreamy effect. It is also a very difficult lens for people like me to use, as it offers none of the conveniences and miraculous tools of the digital camera.

it will take me weeks, even months to figure out how to use it well. I couldn’t begin to tell you if the new photos are good or not, how could I know?

The achromat lens is a dream come true for me, it allows me to experience of taking pictures in the very way the world’s first photographers did, only with color and much improved glass. At the time this lens was created, most people had no idea what their grandparents looked like. One day we could freeze time and space forever.

The original photographers sought to create images that were timeless, ethereal, cinematographic. The phone and digital revolution has opened photography up to everyone, which is wonderful, but that sense of dream and magic has been lost. Once in awhile, I would love to create it, the idea is very exciting to me, more perhaps than I can say.

There is no auto focus or image stabilizer or electronics of any kind on the lens, I have to take a picture pretty much the same way the first photographers did, the way the Civil War photographers did. Having a digital camera is a lot like having an Apple computer, you do nice work but you never really know how it works. The Apple tech support people do all the thinking for  you.

The soft focus forces the viewer to pause, and it was interesting that so many of the messages I got from people who didn’t really like the lens didn’t want to pause. “These photos are too much like what I see without my glasses,” wrote one blog reader, “I just rush past them and get to the digital photos.”

It should no longer surprise me, really, that so many people would choose to offer me their opinions of this new exercise in creativity, I got an awful lot of messages from people this weekend saying they didn’t care for the soft focus or the dreamy backgrounds, it was just not something they wanted or needed. They are used to very clear images, and want to keep seeing them.

Fair enough.

Creativity of course, is not just the challenge of the creator, but also of the viewer and reader. Many people do not like change, and do not like to be challenged in their busy lives. Their Iphone will not ever annoy them in this way. This new lens is hard for me, but is also difficult in some ways, for you. It asks a bit more of us than the digital image, which is all about clarity.

I got a lot of messages complaining about the soft focus, but they were not nasty or enraged.  I only lost my temper at one woman who sent me a message saying “I do not prefer the out of focus photographs.” I did write back and asked her if I requested her opinion, and did she want a refund. (The photographs are free to anyone.) Still, I’ve come a long way.

I suspect she did not like my attempt at irony, but I remembered I was evolving and moving beyond petty pique and accepting the new rules of online/social media etiquette, which is that there are no rules or inhibition or etiquette, whatever pops up in your head leaves your fingers and flies out into the ether.

I used to get angrier at this new American instinct to offer unsolicited advice and opinions, I am learning to cope with it, my grandmother taught me it was rude to offer unwanted opinions, she pinched my cheeks hard when I did it, but that was long before social media, when unsolicited advice is seen by many people  not as rudeness, but as a Constitutional right. If you dare to put it out there, you are asking for it.

I can hardly imagine someone walking up to me on the street or sitting  in my living room saying, “hey, I see you got a new lens, I don’t like the pictures at all.” In my town, that would still be considered bad manners. Online, it is simply part of the “friendship.” I would personally never say those things to a stranger, and certainly not to a “friend,” unless I was asked. It seems rude to me, even when there is no intent to be rude.

I have often expressed my gratitude that Henry David Thoreau did not have to sit on the edge of his pond and read messages from Facebook and e-mails on his writing, his musing and survival decisions. I still belong to the Church Of Mind Your Own Business, but we can’t seem to keep a pastor or a congregation.

There is truth in this idea that I am asking for it of course, as any author, artist or creator knows. I have been putting it out there for more than 30 years, and I love the challenge of trying something new, even when people don’t like it, even when it is not good. How can you grow if you aren’t willing to fail, and publically?

Putting it out there takes courage, it is the mind’s equivalent of jumping off the cliff. Fear of criticism has killed more books and creative careers than any dictator or fascist.

Getting a new lens, especially one as tricky as this one, is a leap of faith. I will absolutely keep going until the lens is mastered and I know what it can or can’t do. I am not close. And I will share the results with you, good and bad. To do anything else would be pure cowardice.

Many people take the creative process for granted, they simply are reflecting what they want or don’t want or like or don’t want. Sylvia Plath says the worse enemy to creativity is self-doubt. And she did not have to check her texts and e-mails and Facebook message as soon as her poems were published. A good friend told me that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I like Kurt Vonnegut’s idea about creativity: “we have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” And the way down is long and hard and often terrifying, the way up is fleeting and fragile. Creativity takes courage.

I am so far quite happy with the new lens, it is not something I would use every day, but it adds to the rich mix of possibilities for the photographs I take. The digital camera is very literal, precise and clear, very good for the day-to-day portrayal of life. My Petzval art lens and my new achromat (on trial for a couple of weeks) has been a great boon to all of my photographer, because it helps me to understand the lens and the camera and the light so much better than when I just relied on a computer to make my decisions.

But I owe you all more than just doing the same thing every day. You deserve better than that, and so do I.

An achromat photo is pure, it reveals everything about me and my sense of composition, good and bad. What is at stake for me is the idea that I can capture images in a new and different and useful way. Also whether or not I can really understand how glass in a lens works and learn more than how to push a shutter button. That is the path to great photography, I am just not nearly there yet. To get there, I will have to fail again and again and jump off that cliff.

I never really tailor my writing or photography to what people think.  I am not running for political office, I don’t take polls about my work and follow them.

That is not creativity, is simply turns the creative into a kind of cultural slave, an artistic politician running for office.  We see how many of our politicians are becoming slaves to money and public opinion. To allow what people think to shape what I wrte or what photos I take would be the death of me.

Creativity does work both ways. It challenges the people on either end to see the world in a different way. You ask something of me, but I ask something you as well – to think and see the world in different ways. That’s my job.

The viewer always has the advantage, he or she can just go away or look away.

The creative can’t go anywhere, she is hanging out there, her very soul and intellectual organs exposed. Every time Maria makes a new quilt, she puts her very being out there for people to see, I much admire her courage as well as her skill.

My own feeling about the new lens (and many people do like it) is very positive. I’m excited about the possibilities I saw at the county fair, especially with the color and soft backgrounds.It evokes the old daguerrotypes and early pictures.

I have not yet learned to use this lens, I don’t know what it can or can’t do. The very heart of my idea of creativity is to be open, to show my failures as well as my successes.

That is in part because I don’t ever knowingly look outside of myself to make creative decisions, I look inward, I am my audience and my muse and my critic. I am faithful only to myself, the person I must respect is me.

My feelings about unwanted advice are well know, but that is my problem, not yours. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone else any more, like privacy, we have given up on it.   Nobody needs to apologize to me or feel badly about what they say.  This is the world we live in.

You should say what it is on your minds, and if it bothers me I will let you know. As for myself, when someone who is creative tries something new and difficult or challenge, I try very hard to encourage them, an urge them to keep at it until the glorious truth is revealed. And it always is.

Nobody knows how creative adventures and plunges will turn out, surely not the person doing the creating. I hate to think of how many beautiful words and images have been stillborn or aborted or perished by unwanted and unsolicited advice.

I will not be one of them.