Enjoy the Process

How do you stay inspired and motivated to photograph until you’re (beyond) 120 years old?

Simple:

Enjoy the process.

Is it fun for you?

If photography isn’t fun for you, it is not worth doing. You don’t have any duty to make good photos. No — making photos should be akin to playing! Photography is playing!

Furthermore, photography is fun and challenging. If it is too easy, it is boring.

This is actually why I find street photography so fun; it is the ultimate adrenaline rush!

We street photographers are visual adrenaline junkies.

I know personally speaking, I have had the MOST FUN in street photography when I was challenged. When shooting was ‘scary’ for me:

Jazz hands. Hollywood, 2011 — Lowrider. Downtown LA, 2011

Is a scary process a more fun process?

For myself, a more challenging and difficult process is more fun. This is why I love powerlifting so much; the fun and the ‘danger’ involved!

I am also attracted to people I find interesting. People who are beautiful, raw, edgy, and ‘different’:

Living an epic life is the best life

One of my favorite Nietzsche quotes on living the best possible life (maximizing your enjoyment in existence):

“The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as soon as you cannot be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon past when you could be content to live concealed in the woods like timid deer!” – Nietzsche

LIVE ON!

ERIC