5 ways to jump-start your creativity

As a photographer, you know there are ups and downs along the journey.

There are times you feel wildly inspired and the miles zip by. There are other times when you’ve hit a plateau, the flat road stretching out endlessly in front of you. Sometimes the hills are steep, and it’s slow-going.

In the worst times, it can feel like you’re just sitting on the side of the road with a dead battery, watching everyone else fly by, hoping for some little spark of inspiration to come along and get you moving again.

Here are five tips to help you jump-start your creativity and keep it rolling.

1. Cultivate your curiosity

• Brainstorm a list of things/topics that interest you
• Expand an Idea
• Develop a Personal Project

Ask yourself: “What interests me?” The key to brainstorming is to write down ANYTHING that comes to mind, without judgement. Start with general topics (e.g. Birds, Swimming, Horses, Twins, Coming of Age, My Kids…)

Next, you can edit, refine, and dig deeper into each topic. Ask yourself: What specifically interests me about this topic? What do I want to know about it? Again, without judging, jot down a stream-of-consciousness list of short answers (or further questions).

Here’s an example of one of mine:

Twins – uniqueness and sameness, closeness, How do they play together? What does this special relationship look like on a day-to-day basis? Shared: touches, glances, laughs…

Then take your camera, and use it to explore your topic, learn more about it, document it, and tell a story. See where it leads you. This process may turn into a fascinating project on its own, or it may lead you to something unexpected. Go with it.

2. Let the masters inspire you

Here’s a short list of some of my favorites (in no particular order) to get you started:

• Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Annie Leibovitz
• Sally Mann
• Mary Ellen Mark
• Edward Steichen
• Jodi Cobb
• Alessandra Sanguinetti
• Dorthea Lange
• Irving Penn
• Walker Evans

I’ve recently discovered a treasure trove of inspiration by seeking out “the masters”.  Last month, I checked out a stack of coffee table photography books so big and heavy that it took me three trips to carry them all to my car.

The beauty of this research is that often, you can see a large body of one artist’s work in one place. You can also read about how a photographer’s life experiences influenced different periods of their work. You can see how they consistently evolve, and how their style changes over tiime. They experiment. And they sometimes fail (at least in the eyes of their contemporary critics).

For me, It’s a helpful reminder that it’s okay to change styles, try something different, experiment, and yes, even fail along the way.

3. Carve out space

• Clear the Clutter
• Have Inspiration Handy
• Light a Candle
• Grab a Notebook or Journal

Make yourself room to work. This does not have to be a major project. It can be as simple as cleaning your desk, stacking some inspirational books, and lighting a candle. Make sure you have a good notebook or journal nearby for writing down inspired ideas.

Don’t have a desk? Organize your bedside table so that you wake up feeling inspired.

4. Build a creative routine

• Find a Little Time
• Include Self-Care
• Make Coffee or Tea
• Separate Creative Work Time from Email and Social Media
• Repeat

Pablo Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” Carve out daily time for work so that inspiration knows where and when to find you. Including some aspect of self-care in your routine goes a long way to helping you feel more centered and receptive when inspiration shows up.

As a mother of three young kids, I’ve found the only way to make this happen for me is to wake up early. I’m not naturally a morning person, but having the time to myself to work (and getting to drink my coffee while it’s still hot) is more than worth it.

5. Try something new and PLAY

Finally, sometimes it’s fun to just play with your camera and not worry about the results. If you’re doing something for the first time, there’s much less pressure to do it well.

For me, this is key, because I have a strong tendency towards perfectionism (just ask my mom about the first drawing I made of my face, and the ensuing tantrum when I realized that it didn’t look like me.)

Here are some ideas:

• Try a new genre: Always shoot people? Try landscape or macro.
• Do a creativity exercise: There’s a great resource on the CM forum with so many ideas, it would probably take you years to get through all of them.
• Follow a prompt: Join the fun with CM Glimpse, or just google “photography prompt”.
• Use a specialty lens: Rent or borrow a Lensbaby, a tilt-shift, a fish-eye…or try freelensing!

Below are my first shots with a Lensbaby. They are far from “perfect”, but the process was fun, and that was the point.

Resources

This post was largely inspired by two wonderful books:

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I highly recommend the audio version. Elizabeth Gilbert did the reading herself, and it sounds like she’s right there giving you a giant pep-talk.
• Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind edited by Jocelyn K. Glei of 99U. This one helped me look at my time differently, and come up with a plan for optimizing my creative work.

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