Dear friends,
Creative photography is our pursuit. Some quick ideas for you:
FILES
1. Create a photo project of all your screenshots
I see the screenshot as the new form of ‘meta-art’. That is —
When you screenshot something, it is like you’re shooting a photo of it … but it is a ‘meta’ photo of something.
Because if you think about it, when you photograph something, you elevate it, you honor it. By screenshotting something, you signal its importance.
Something I did was in ‘the devil is in the details‘, I just looked through my WordPress library of all my photos labeled ‘screenshot’, and just made a little mini gallery and series of all the photos I screenshotted the details I found interesting in my photos. Perhaps you can do the same and upload it to your own blog.
2. Rust, patina, beautiful decay
I also consider photography to be my painting. What this means is that I LOVE seeing rust, patina, decay, and other ‘wabi sabi’ details (wabi sabi means something becomes more beautiful as it ages).
This gives us much creative leeway as photographers, because it means that we can approach photography abstractly. Photography ceases to be about clarity — it becomes more about emotion, mood, and your soul you impute into your photos.
Shoot more photos (macro, high contrast black and white) or just photos in general which highlight and focus shapes, forms, tones, rust, textures, grit and grain.
3. Study all forms of design
Car design, architecture, home design, shoe/sneaker design, any type of design.
The reason is that we can ‘cross pollinate‘ much when it comes to studying other forms of design. If we consider that photographers are designers, then it means:
Study ALL design.
All design or any design which inspires you is good design.
4. Creative books
- HOW TO SEE // open source
- Dynamic composition manual
- The art of street photography
- Color manual — DIRECT DOWNLOAD PDF // google drive PDF
5. Creative tools
6. Tools to get your blog started
- Get the free open source newspack theme
- Register your own website blog on bluehost.com and install wordpress.org
Open source is the future.
7. Sketch it to understand it
Sketches are good. By sketching your compositions you better understand them, and can better imbue these lessons into your brain, so you can see them when you’re out shooting.
Read more: Why make pictures?
8. Watch great cinema
7 samurai. Anything by Akira Kurosawa is good. 7 samurai compositions.
Cinema should be art, or just moving photos and paintings.
9. ERIC KIM EXPERIENCES
Learn to see more creatively at ERIC KIM EXPERIENCE
10. Stick to 1 aesthetic for a very long time
Just stick to monochrome for a decade. Maybe 2!
Why do I love black and white so much? The reason:
It is the ultimate ‘creative constraint‘.
Creative constraints are perhaps the secret to creativity in photography. As David Alan Harvey said:
Too many options will ruin your life.
If this sparked any creative ideas within you, feel free to forward to a friend!