{"id":30264,"date":"2016-09-02T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T16:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=30264"},"modified":"2016-08-19T15:30:32","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T22:30:32","slug":"make-photos-that-others-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/02\/make-photos-that-others-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Photos that Others Hate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dark<\/p>\n

I read an article recently about James Altucher\u00e2\u20ac\u201d in which he shared the secret of becoming a great DJ is knowing how to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clear the dance floor\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d meaning, you choose a song that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t popular, which causes everyone to stop dancing and leave. Having the courage to play a song that you like (but you know that everyone else hates) takes courage. It takes guts.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A lot of us fall victim to this in photography as well. We have a certain passion or interest in a certain style of photography, but we are fearful that others will hate our images.<\/p>\n

But that is precisely the secret of being creative and original\u00e2\u20ac\u201d intentionally try to make photos that others hate. Not to piss them off, but to eschew the opinions of others. To trust your own opinion instead of the opinions of others<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Quit trying to get others to like your work<\/h2>\n

\"Dark<\/p>\n

The funny thing about my photography is this: the harder I try to impress others with my photography, the less likely I am to impress them. The less I try to impress others with my photography (and focusing on making photos that I like) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d others end up liking my photos more.<\/p>\n

For example, I have tried such a hard time making the best street photos possible. And many people think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pretty good.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But I would overly obsess on getting a lot of social media followers and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153likes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Shoot for yourself<\/h2>\n

\"Cindy<\/p>\n

Having recently moved to the suburbs, I started to realize I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shoot much \u00e2\u20ac\u0153street photography\u00e2\u20ac\u009d anymore. This made me feel pretty downtrodden and depressed. So I ended up taking a break from social media, and started to focus on just shooting personal photos of Cindy. These photos were mostly for myself.<\/p>\n

And when I started to share these photos of Cindy (#cindyproject) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d people have told me it is my best work (much better than my street photography).<\/p>\n

If you want to be more creative, original\u00e2\u20ac\u201d you need to take risks in your photography. The more active we are on social media, the less likely we are to take risk. Why? Because if you take a risk with your photography, you have the chance of making photos and sharing photos that your old audience doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like.<\/p>\n

Alienating your audience<\/h2>\n

\"korea---the-presentation-of-self-5_7417535638_o\"<\/p>\n

Think of Bob Dylan\u00e2\u20ac\u201d he was known for his acoustic guitar. When he started to play electric\u00e2\u20ac\u201d his audience hated<\/em> it. He got constantly boo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d by his audience (at his own concerts). Everyone wanted him to go back to acoustic. But Dylan ignored all that\u00e2\u20ac\u201d he pursued his own vision, and ended up constantly re-making himself.<\/p>\n

The same goes with Kanye West. He started off as a producer (everyone said producers couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rap). He then started to rap, got some success, and then wanted to try something else. He started to sing with autotune (808\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Heartbreaks) and was ridiculed by many others. As time has gone on, he has revolutionized fashion, hip hop music (combining it with electronic and rock music), and has pissed off a lot of people along the way.<\/p>\n

Daido Moriyama and other Japanese photographers from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Provoke Era\u00e2\u20ac\u009d went against the norms of taking sharp, clear, medium-format, highly-detailed photos. They threw away precision, and brought on grittiness. They shot with cheap compact cameras that were out of focus, blurry, and technically imperfect. But that revolutionized photography\u00e2\u20ac\u201d the focus was now on emotion, soul, and a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stream of consciousness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instead of factual depictions of photos.<\/p>\n

If you are trying to re-make yourself, or create a revolution\u00e2\u20ac\u201d you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to piss off a lot of people and alienate a lot of your older audience.<\/p>\n

People prefer not to change<\/h2>\n

\"korea---the-presentation-of-self-9_7417521342_o\"<\/p>\n

As humans, we prefer the status quo. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like to ruffle feathers. Society tells us to stand in line and shut the fuck up. Otherwise, how can we live in harmony with billions of people on the planet?<\/p>\n

Times have changed. Most of us don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live in warring tribal villages and kill one another.<\/p>\n

Most of us have the basic necessities of living (not starving to death, not freezing to death, and not dying of thirst). Now we complain about not having the newest digital camera, the newest smartphone, or the newest sports car.<\/p>\n

If we have our basic necessities met, use all your extra psychic energy and time to invest in being as creative as you can. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t waste time trying to make more money. Use your time to make more art.<\/p>\n

Disconnect. Spend less time on social media, and create new photos that please you. Build on your new work for a while, and then release it when you are ready. You will probably confuse a lot of people and have people hate your work, but that is fine. No artist is fully-admired in his\/her lifetime.<\/p>\n

Be bold<\/h2>\n

\"korea---the-presentation-of-self-6_7417531944_o\"<\/p>\n

Be bold. Take risks. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let the fear of failure hold you back. Fulfill your personal maximum, and ignore everyone else.<\/p>\n

You got this,
\nEric<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read an article recently about James Altucher\u00e2\u20ac\u201d in which he shared the secret of becoming a great DJ is knowing how to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153clear the dance floor\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d meaning, you choose a song that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t popular, which causes everyone to stop dancing and leave. Having the courage to play a song that you like (but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}