There were 1.8 trillion photographs shot last year. Most are just a simple record of something that happened, while others are elevated beyond that by becoming art. Here is how you can lift your photography beyond the mundane.
Creativity is often misunderstood. Many consider it to be coming up with an original idea. However, as the idiom proclaims, "There is nothing new under the sun." All creative concepts are blends of what came before.
However, there are creative people. They can think outside the box and find unique ways of combining and adjusting existing approaches into something new. The good news is that thinking creatively is a skill that can be learned. There are numerous ways in which you can boost your creativity.
Look After Your Mind
Photography is a mindful activity that can help you clear and calm your thoughts, allowing for better focus and boosting the ability to generate new ideas. Some of it is about engaging with nature, which is known to reduce stress and stimulate creative thinking. Capturing the sun breaking the horizon at dawn or a delicate bird taking to the wing while bathed in golden light creates a feeling of wellness.
Photography can get you out of the house and walking. Physical activity releases endorphins that can improve your mood and open your mind to new creative pathways. Photography is a great way to improve your mental health.
Furthermore, those suffering from stress or low mood often shun interactions with others. But this only makes things worse for them. When I am out with my camera, people stop to talk because they want to share the experience of seeing that sunrise or the dolphins swimming in the river mouth. I walk away feeling better about myself when this happens.
Engaging with art can be beneficial for the soul. Apart from positively affecting mental and emotional well-being, it is a means of emotional expression, relaxation, and self-discovery. That leads to increased happiness and a greater connection to oneself and others.
All creative acts reduce stress hormones and instead promote a state of calm. They also provide a safe way of expressing powerful emotions that you might find difficult to articulate. Moreover, the creative nature of photography boosts self-esteem because it gives a sense of achievement.
Photography isn’t the only art that can help heal you in this way; mastering other arts can too. Furthermore, all the arts complement each other. The skills you learn in photography will help you when you draw. Drawing will impact pottery. Meanwhile, the dexterity needed for pottery can relate to playing a musical instrument, and the structure of music has much in common with photographic composition.
Brainstorming Isn’t Just for Management Courses
Although all the rage in 1980s leadership and management courses, brainstorming and mind mapping work. They can help you discover new, creative approaches.
In brainstorming, you write down thoughts around a central topic as they come to mind. It works best in groups where one person's idea produces a different thought for someone else. Afterwards, the collected ideas are considered.
Mind maps are a related technique but work better than brainstorming if you are alone. You start by writing down a topic. Next, you draw branches away from that to new ideas as they occur. Each of those ideas generates new branches as related thoughts come to mind, and those can branch off further. Some links will be irrelevant, while others may trigger new directions to explore.
Passion, Excitement, Enthusiasm, and Joy
There’s a cliché often used by small businesses that annoys me. It’s when they say, "I am passionate about (insert product here)." The Cambridge Dictionary defines passion as “a very powerful feeling, for example of sexual attraction, love, hate, anger, or other emotion.” So, when a businessperson claims they are passionate about stationery, diapers, garden tools, or lamp shades, then I remain unconvinced.
However, I accept that people can be deeply passionate about their creative work, often feeling a strong emotional connection to their art. But passion is a short-lived emotion.
Excitement comes from passion, but it is fleeting, too. I get a twang of excitement when I go out with my camera to photograph at sunrise or travel out to the local islands for the puffins, and that helps motivate me to make the most of the situation.
Without passion and excitement, there would be no enthusiasm for photography. Enthusiasm leads to a sense of joy, and joy brings about passion. So we go full circle.
Without all those elements, your work will become mundane, sausage-machine junk that lacks the next essential feature of becoming successful.
That’s all very well, but how do you break into that if you don’t feel any of those things? The answer to that is perseverance.
Perseverance
Perseverance is the relentless commitment to overcoming obstacles. It’s also continuing in the face of adversity. It is challenging, but all good artists, including photographers, learn to persevere to achieve their goals.
Yet, it is not merely about enduring challenges.
It’s a hard concept to appreciate until you try it, but actively engaging with those challenges you encounter will foster growth in your creativity. Why? It enables the photographer to cultivate resilience and learn from their setbacks. Perseverance transforms impediments from being potential failures into opportunities for improvement.
The biggest obstacle for many of us is the photographer’s equivalent of writer’s block when we don’t feel inspired. Like the skilled writer who will pick up his pen and paper despite that obstacle, perseverance allows us to push on by using our cameras, even when we don’t feel like it.
Attention to Detail
Paying close attention to the finer details of your work and striving for precision and excellence is a bone of contention.
At its inception, photography was considered a science. Therefore, precision and attention to detail were manifested in photos.
Although precise photography dominated much of the 20th century, other approaches such as pictorialism and abstract imagery broke away from the idea of exacting reproduction of the real world, instead embracing a more fluid approach to photography.
Even if you prefer that latter approach, being able to take the photo you want with the exact depth of field, showing or stopping motion, and with the composition you are seeking is an important aspect of photography.
If you pursue photography as a qualification through any of the excellent photographic organizations, you are, at first, required to demonstrate technical precision because it is important to master that. However, if you have evolved to a freer form of expression in your work, that may be more important to you than an exact reproduction of reality. But don’t mistake that for being careless and slapdash. You should be able to repeat your results and not let them be a happy accident.
Education and Curiosity
True artistic photographers desire to explore and understand the world around them. That fuels their creativity. Therefore, broadening your knowledge by reading books and articles or taking classes in areas outside your usual interests can expose you to new ideas and ways of thinking. Experimenting with techniques and trying different equipment also breaks you away from the mundane. Why use the same camera and lens combination as the person standing next to you?
Conversely, sometimes imposing constraints and limiting what you photograph can force you to think more creatively within those boundaries. For example, you might decide to shoot all day with one focal length and f-stop and ensure that every photo contains the color green.
Both approaches require curiosity and an eagerness to explore your art.
Empathy
As I've shown, photographers should be open to new experiences, ideas, and perspectives, which helps them to innovate and grow. A great approach is connecting with a diverse array of people. Empathy means we can understand the feelings of others and share those in our work. It helps us broaden our outlook and create relatable and impactful photography.
Those photographers and artists who are most successful are often highly sensitive to their own emotions and the emotions of others, which they express through their creative works.
Vision, Self-Discipline, and Adaptability
Photographers with a clear vision or concept that they want to communicate through their art are far more likely to produce bodies of work that are coherent and thus more compelling. Following that vision requires self-discipline.
That same self-discipline also helps photographers manage their time and resources more effectively. Accordingly, they can produce their work with consistency. With consistency, artists can also adapt to new techniques and trends, continuously evolving their style and approach.
The opposite of that is being erratic, which gives unreliable and disjointed results that fail to grow.
Take Risks and Be Independent
Photographers willing to take risks and experiment with new ideas, even if it means facing criticism or failure, are far more creative than those who don’t. If you have measurable successes in your photography (beyond your mom telling you how great you are) and at the same time ignore the naysayers who ridicule your unusual art, it means you are taking risks and on the right track.
Taking risks often results from working independently and being self-motivated. Risk takers rely on their judgment and instincts. That doesn’t mean they cannot ever collaborate with others and discuss their work with their peers; occasional structured criticism is important. However, art made by committee is never good. All the great photographers from history would reflect on their own experiences within their world, using their insights to inform their work.
Teaching Others and Earning Respect
It never ceases to amaze me that some people jealously guard their techniques. Every great artist in history has been influenced by those who came before them and, in turn, influenced those who followed. Being part of that continuum by selflessly passing on your skills and knowledge gives you a deeper understanding of your photography.
Much of my work is teaching other photographers. Nothing brings me more joy than when they progress to becoming successful, and I’m proud to say many have. I often get asked questions that will spawn a new idea in my head that inspires me to try something new.
Practice Makes Perfect
All of the above have one thing in common. They require you to use your camera. Without a doubt, the one thing that makes the most difference is working at your art. Take photos, see what went right and wrong. Then take more of what went right and correct what didn't. After 200,000 frames, you will start to become good.
What Do You Think?
Are there things that have helped you become a better photographer? Do you get joy from helping others succeed and find that it inspires your learning? It would be great to hear your experiences and thoughts in the comments.
