Steps To Be Creative #3
Step # 7
Search in your own likes and dislikes for your passion, what do you like to read, what interest you.
Remember the tendency of us all is to think that our tastes and likes are not important, but do not believe that because in your likes is what you are looking for, you have to find your visual identity.
What is a visual identity? , it’s like your fingerprint, or your face (which they say there’s only one like yours in the world, visual identity is the way you see the world, and only you, and it’s based on your likes and dislikes and your feelings.
It’s the same reason some people like vanilla and some like chocolate, some people like the color red and some blue, so dig deep into yourself and bring out your own visual identity and then go out and photograph your world and show it to the world.
There are no limits or rules, you are going to make your own rules, you can leave the photo as is or completely transform it so it says what you want it to say, but always make photos that say something, because photos without a reason are not really interesting, a reason, by the way, can be a feeling, and if you are feeling something with a scene then that is the reason for the photo.
Examples;
A photographer likes hair, and is fascinated by hairdos in men and women so he/she goes out to photograph mainly people with interesting hairdos.
Another is fascinated by Tattoos, and makes tattoos his main focus of his photos, and not just takes photos of people with tattoos but puts in some creative light and the best angle for the photos.
Another photographer is fascinated (likes) by dresses in women or suits in men, so goes out and photographs interesting people in the streets with extraordinary dresses or very elegant dresses (Bill Cunningham of New York).
Step #8
We all have gone out without a plan to see what we see and photograph, we all do it, but i found out that to catch a good photo this way is almost like winning the lottery, that is why now i always have a plan before i even step out the door, and if while i am taking photos within my plan i see something outside the plan that is interesting then i take the photo and then i continue with my planned photographic journey.
I started with landscapes, but once i had taken a lot of landscape photos and saw that they laked something i started to look even further into my likes in the effort to find my visual identity, and so i stopped taking landscape photos, then i went inti seascape photos and same thing happened, until i started taking photos of people, that’s when i found out i liked people more than landscapes, then i found out that it was not just people but interesting people or people in motion doing something, i found out that if they were either angry or happy or sad that made my photo even better, so i decided to go that way.
Sometimes no matter how many photos you take, non of them will do, if you find that your photos were just not good enough then do not use them, that sometimes happens, and then the photo that was not planned was the winner, that is what happened with this photo at the top of the page, i had taken about 40 photos of people in a public place but then i saw this sunset that i had already made the decision not to take anymore and it turned out to be the winner.