Creative Thinking

As a creative, no matter what your field, it is extremely important to keep coming up with fresh new ideas. How do we keep our creative thinking juices flowing? Things like what to write about in a blog, book or movie plots, lyric writing, art, cooking and photography can all get stale and become boring if you keep rehashing old stuff. So how does one keep stepping up to the plate and continue to produce new and innovative concepts?

Well as a photographer I was told by my lecturers to keep looking at imagery. They were not just talking about surfing the internet and looking at other photographer’s websites for ideas. This would be a bad mistake. Imagine what would happen to the content makers in the fields listed above if they only ‘borrowed’ their ideas from within their industry circles. Where would the next biggest, brightest, sexiest concept come from? In the case of photography your work will start to look similar to the work of hundreds of other photographers out there. There would be no personal style or influence to your work. However, when you do see something different from an artist who is not afraid to experiment you would STOP and take notice.

No, you see my tutors were talking about getting inspiration for creative thinking from all forms of imagery. Things like movies, books, magazines, documentaries, art galleries, graffiti, music (the images you create in your head when you listen to a song) and even nature.

Where am I going with all of this? Well you see yesterday I was in a bit of a creative thinking rut. Not in terms of taking photos but with writing a speech for a meeting I had the next day. I had to give a speech to a large group of businesses from a local networking group but like a beer tap at a city bar at 3am on a Saturday night, my creative juices were not flowing. ‘Persuaded’ to take a break by my other half, I ended up watching a movie called ‘About Time’. The movie finished late at night but through it I found inspiration and as a result I could not sleep. So there I was at 1am typing away at my talk. Here is part of it:

“Last night I was forcibly coerced into watching a ‘chick’ flick. It was called ‘About Time’. By the end of the movie I was feeling very low/depressed but still glad that I had watched it. You see the main character had the ability to travel back in time, an ability he used to change the course of events AND spend more time with loved ones. A moment he shared with his dad towards the end of the movie made me think about my son and our time together. I thought to myself wouldn’t it be cool to have his ability. Then I realised we all have this ability and it is through the process of taking images and video.”

“However as a photographer I am not normally in any of these photos with my son. I know that all of you must take 1000’s of photos of your loved ones but how many of them are you actually in. So my advice for you is to pass that camera to someone next to you and get in front of the lens. Get photographed amongst your children and family and share the fun and their love, so that in 10 to 20 years both you and your children can go back in time through the act of looking at your family images.

Finally I just wanted to say that my goal for 2014 [as a photographer] is to give the gift of time travel to as many families as possible so that they can keep reliving TODAY for many years to come.”

The point of this article is that if you are stuck coming up with ideas in your work, take a break and explore your world through other means. Read a book, watch a movie or go for a walk. The human mind is amazing with its ability to deliver. You just never know where your next creation might arise from.

Has this ever happened to you? I am sure everyone has experienced it. For me, this was not the first time but it is the first time I have ever written about it. Let me know in the comments section below about your personal moments of inspiration. How as distraction from the job at hand helped your creative thinking?

One last thing. I hope as a parent you also take away my words of advice from my talk. Try and be IN more images taken of your family rather than always being the one clicking the shutter. Start today you will not regret it.

Chat soon.
Warren