Creativity - Drought and Flood
Working in any creative industry can some times leave a person feeling either drained or overrun with ideas. Managing the flow of ideas, and keeping track of them is essential to keeping both your business and your creative sills alive.
Some very basic habits that have kept me creating and developing may not be universal for everyone, but are a good starting place:
Write it down. Some times an interesting idea comes up in a conversation that I may not have the time, the budget, or a client for. Yet. So I keep a journal with all the odd ideas that come up, and dip back into it whenever I’m looking for inspiration.
Collect odd objects. As a specialist in product photography I am more drawn to photographing objects in interesting ways. If I find an interesting object or item I will set it aside if I already own it, or maybe see if someone is having a sale on it. I have a whole box of small trinkets that I try different photographic experiments with on an ongoing basis.
Take time to create. Aside from doing routine work, I note down 1-2 shoots I want to do just for my own purposes every month. This usually means setting aside half a day, or a whole day, and picking out one of the concepts in my journal and seeing what I can do to bring them to life.
Getting uncomfortable. Experimenting only within your preferred subject can give you creative tunnel vision, so it is important to experiment with subject matter that you don’t normally photograph. The results can lead you to a great technical understanding within your main subject matter of practice, or open you up to a new type of shooting that you want to get more involved with.
