Take Photos Which Inspire You
I want to ask you a question.
The last time you produced some personal work, did it feel like it was something that you were super excited by? Is it work that inspires you, or are you trying to fit in to what you THINK people want to see?
Don't get me wrong, I'm the first person to tell you that in order to get clients, you need to showcase an element of what they want/need to see. If you want to work for Chanel, your work needs to look like Chanel.
But do you actually LIKE Chanel, or do you think you're supposed to like Chanel?
Let me give you come context.
Whilst I was at university, I was very drawn to feminine, almost fantasy-esque imagery. I would come up with concepts, do test shoots and share them with my lecturer, only to be told that my ideas weren't “cool enough” or “edgy enough” or “fashion enough.” That was pretty soul destroying.
It was made worse by comparison with my peers, who I admired SO much, and thought were so cool (I still do). Their work was edgy, exciting, different. My ideas and the concepts I was creating weren't those things.
By the time my three years of my degree were up, I was totally burnt out and had zero desire to pick up a camera. I doubted myself so much, and had been told again and again that my ideas weren't right, that I'd shut down. I ended up quitting photography all together, and thought that I'd never go back to it.
Imagination and creativity is a funny thing though, especially when you're an artist. It doesn't REALLY go away. It's always there. Eventually, after a good few years of time off from my camera, my imagination began to pick up again. Ideas for images came flooding back, and I began to shoot again.
I'll be honest, it took a long time to really tune into my own creative vision. I'd been so conditioned to look at what others were doing, and taking inspiration from that, that I doubted my own imagination endlessly. Instagram made that so much worse - seeing what was trendy, trying to match it and totally failing - it was all draining.
But in the last two years I've really turned a corner. I had a consultation session with an incredible teacher, Zoe Whishaw, who told me to tune into myself. To zone out from what other fashion photographers were creating, and look within for my concepts and ideas. She really switched something inside of me, and since then I've been on a steady path to truly knowing who I am as an artist, and what I want to create
These days I'm creating concepts that excite me endlessly, that fill me with passion and that I can't wait to create.
The incredible benefit that's come from this (and one that I did not truly see coming) was how much tuning into what inspires ME and creating MY ideas has attracted my dream clients. It makes sense when you think about it, because I'm naturally drawn to my dream clients for a reason. They inspire me! They excite me! They make me dream!
So if the concepts that I come up with inspire me, they are pretty much always inline with what my dream clients would like as well.
It sounds so simple, but it IS that simple: learn to tune into yourself, learn to create work that YOU love, and your career will reap the benefits of it.
