Creativity is a challenge for all of us. This second article looks at five more attributes that the most successful ads have. It includes one most important characteristic of all.
inside first of this two part series, we looked at 5 of the top 10 common habits that top creators have in common. This second part adds five more and, like that, includes some simple exercises to help your creativity grow.
6. Spend time alone
Loneliness gives you time for yourself, and that has been shown to help with creativity. Most great artists spend time alone. At times, being distracted can be frustrating and disrupt our creative flow. However, for many of us, we spend a lot of time dealing with external factors and we never have time to be alone with our thoughts.
Creative Practice Exercises
At least three times a week, find time to be alone and think about yourself. I mean being completely alone with your thoughts and not distracted by external sources like your smartphone or camera. Close the door in your room, go for a walk or drive without the radio on. If you are new to it, it will be difficult to do at first, but your brain will activate different neural pathways that stimulate your imagination. Keep a diary of your thoughts and things that happen.
7. Using Photography as a Mindfulness Exercise
I have long thought that being creative with photography can help our mental health. It can get us out into nature, get us moving, help us meet other people (they always come to talk to me as soon as the sun comes up on the horizon) and focus. our mind into the present to create a picture instead of whatever is going on. bother us.
Mindfulness is another word for open-track meditation. It is the opposite of daydreaming. It is focusing entirely on one thing for the time being. Focusing on our photography and turning off all other thoughts is kind of a meditative experience.
Besides being good for our mental health, mindfulness has many benefits, including improved learning and memory. All these characteristics have a positive effect on creativity.
Creative Practice Exercises
Go out into the street or the countryside with your camera and find somewhere to sit still. Put your camera in full auto mode and observe the world around you. Take pictures of things as they pass by. Every ten or fifteen minutes, get rid of some automation, maybe use aperture priority to start, then auto ISO, and then switch to manual mode. Finally, turn off autofocus. Think about how your thought processes change as you gradually gain more control.
8. Passion for photography
One of the most annoying clichés I’ve seen is businesses claiming they’re “passionate (insert business here).” I didn’t doubt for a moment that most of them were passionate. passionate, although I’ve seen that used by a business that claims to be passionate about unclogging drains.The guy I called, when he showed up, didn’t seem very excited.
Clogged drains aside, I think those businesses are getting the word wrong.
Think about what passion is. It’s the excitement you feel when you fall in love for the first time, or the thrill you get when you attend a live performance of your favorite musicians. True passion is short-lived. It’s a vital feeling that keeps you motivated and starts the creative path, but over time, it’s replaced by deep satisfaction and contentment. If you continue to seek that passion when it comes naturally, you will be disappointed.
Passion gives your brain a hit with all those feel-good hormones. That’s why so many photographers love to buy new equipment. Think about that new lens or camera you bought a few years ago and how excited you were when you received it. While you still appreciate how awesome it is, you don’t feel the same level of euphoria as you did when you used it for the first time, do you? Instead, you buy another lens to get that hit.
Passion is an emotion that should be treated with caution. If it doesn’t tie into your life, it won’t lead to success.
Creative Practice Exercises
Take a few photos. Then, think back to a time when you were extremely happy. Try to recall how it felt, what you saw, and how the world saw you. Try to create those emotions and take some more pictures.
Has the way you approach photos changed? Can you see a difference in the pictures?
9. Visual Photography
Intuition is a spontaneous and unconscious pattern of thinking that gives our conscious mind a strong, instinctive feeling. It happens because the unconscious mind processes information that our conscious selves are not aware of. It may seem like a sixth sense, but there’s nothing spooky about it.
The most creative people work intuitively. In photography, intuition can help us predict where to point the camera to shoot. Anyone can learn to be intuitive, and mindfulness activities like doodling, playing an instrument, singing, and taking snapshots, where we don’t think about taking pictures, can empower our intuition.
Creative Practice Exercises
Walk a bunch and quickly take pictures of things as they catch your attention. Don’t overthink or plan the shots, just bring the camera up to eye level and take a quick shot. Over time, your subconscious will learn to predict what is about to happen.
10. The most important aspect: Expanding our experience
The most creative people are willing to try new approaches to everything in their lives. They are oriented to explore life and have new cognitive experiences.
This might mean trying new foods or visiting different places, but it’s also about changing your habits, meeting new people, and discovering new activities. Numerous research papers show that experiencing new things is, above all, the greatest motivator towards creativity.
In photography, that can mean expanding into different genres, trying out techniques you’ve never tried before, visiting exhibitions of other people’s work, exploring other art forms and Shoot in places you’ve never been.
It also means doing new things that may not be like anything you’ve done before. The most recent for me are pottery, tai chi and ornithology.
Expanding our experience and being open to exploring different things is the desire to learn. That has more to do with the quality of creativity than a person’s intellectual capacity.
Creative Practice Exercises
There are countless different activities that we can try. There have never been more opportunities to learn new skills with the multitude of tutorials available online and many organizations offering beginner tutorials. Get something unrelated to photography that you haven’t tried before.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you missed the first part, you can find it by clicking here. It would be great to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
