{"id":32689,"date":"2016-11-23T06:38:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T14:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=32689"},"modified":"2016-10-23T01:42:49","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T08:42:49","slug":"keep-innovating-or-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/23\/keep-innovating-or-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Innovating, Or Die"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hanoi,
Hanoi, 2016 #cindyproject<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I read something interesting recently \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the idea that for an organism to prevent<\/em> dying\u00e2\u20ac\u201d it must constantly add complexity and energy to itself.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I think we can also apply the same idea and philosophy to our creativity. If we stop innovating, coming up with new ideas, or evolving\u00e2\u20ac\u201d we are slowly dying.<\/p>\n

How to keep innovating<\/h2>\n

How do we continue to innovate in our photography and life?<\/p>\n

First of all, my suggestion is to kill your past self. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let your past hold you back. Often times we let this fear of contradicting our past selves prevent us from pushing forward\u00e2\u20ac\u201d trying out new ideas and taking more risks.<\/p>\n

Secondly, innovation happens from noticing things. For example, I think the most innovative photographers are the ones who are the best \u00e2\u20ac\u0153noticers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d They notice what is weird, unusual, or interesting about the world. They can make novel connections between different subjects in a frame. They are able to notice contradictions in society, and put forth projects which reveal these absurdities.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, innovation is about taking risk, and having the courage to fail. Whenever we try anything new, it hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been done before. Therefore the chance of failure is high. Yet the more we fail, the more likely we are to succeed. If we are risk-averse, we will never do anything truly innovative with our art, photography, or life.<\/p>\n

How to die<\/h2>\n

How do we die creatively?<\/p>\n

We die when we close our minds to the thoughts, opinions, and ideas of others.<\/p>\n

We die when we think we know it all.<\/p>\n

We die when we are content with the status-quo.<\/p>\n

We die when we become jaded, and think that the world cannot change.<\/p>\n

We die when we try to be consistent for consistency sake.<\/p>\n

Try something new<\/h2>\n

Break free. Have courage. Take risks.<\/p>\n

Try out something totally new in your photography, and don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell anybody else. Do it for yourself. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask others for their opinion on your new idea\u00e2\u20ac\u201d because nobody can understand a new idea (except yourself).<\/p>\n

Give your new idea the time to grow, before it dies from the criticism of others.<\/p>\n

Try a new photographic style, pursue a new photographic project, and photograph your images with radically new compositions.<\/p>\n

Follow your gut, your intuition, and your heart \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and never stop innovating for yourself and for others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read something interesting recently \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the idea that for an organism to prevent dying\u00e2\u20ac\u201d it must constantly add complexity and energy to itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32754,"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-32689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/eric-kim-street-photography-hanoi-cindy-project.jpg?fit=4928%2C3264&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32689","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=32689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}