Ideas are all around you: how creativity and innovation are powered by new perspectives

One of the hallmarks of an innovator or artist is to see things and spot patterns in the world around us that others may not be able to notice at first. Here are 20 paintings and 20 quotes that illustrate the power of perspective in interpretation and creativity.

PhotoSparks is a weekly feature from YourStory, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the earlier 190 posts, we featured an art festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecom expo, millets fair, climate change expo, wildlife conference, startup festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.

In this edition of PhotoSparks, we showcase the works of emerging artists such as Jakir Hossen, Ram Onkar, Alina Wahid, Shaheen Taj, Alina Danish, Deeba Amin, Sai Kumar, RD Roy, Prateek Sabharwal, Sudeep Mukherjee, and B. Kumaraswamy. Many of their paintings have been exhibited at venues such as Gallery Third Eye (see my earlier photo essay and interview with Singapore-based founder Jasmine Khanna).

Some of these artists have formal degrees in art or come from artistic families, while others are self-taught – just as some founders are first-generation entrepreneurs or may not have an MBA or engineering degree. Success for artists and entrepreneurs can come from cultivating a unique sense of perspective and following it up with iterative experimentation.

As this week’s photo essay shows, creative insights are all around us – in our cities, festivals, markets, farms, nature and culture. Along with the 20 paintings, we present 20 provocative quotes on the power of perspective.

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. – Wayne Dyer

It is not about what you look at, it is about what you see. - Henry David Thoreau

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes. – Marcel Proust

What is behind your eyes holds more power than what is in front of them. – Gary Zukav

The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don't have control over your situation. But you have a choice about how you view it. - Chris Pine

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into perspective. – Anton Chekhov

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. – Albert Einstein

All spiritual practice is the art of shifting perspectives. – Teal Swan

Sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see the light. – Dan Brown

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing. - Camille Pissarro

You change the past when you change the way you see it. - Alan Cohen

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. - Henry Miller

You must look within for value, but must look beyond for perspective. - Denis Waitley

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. - John Lubbock

Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. - Abraham Maslow

If you do not raise your eyes you will think that you are the highest point. - Antonio Porchia

No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye. - Elizabeth Bowen

The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen; but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees. - Erwin Schrödinger

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are. - Anais Nin

Now what have you done today to see, watch, observe and imagine things differently?

Got a creative photograph to share? Email us at [email protected]!

See also the YourStory pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups,’ accessible as apps for Apple and Android devices.