Nurturing your Inherent Creativity as a Photographer

While there are many elements involved in professional photography, nurturing your inherent creativity is among the most important. Top-drawer organisation skills, excellent photographic equipment, great post-processing technique and fantastic client service cannot mask a dearth of creative energy. Without it, images lack punch and life, and even using eye-catching props cannot lift the drab dullness.

Nurturing your Inherent Creativity as a Photographer

While some people may be more creative than others, we all have an innate capacity to create. If you were to ask a group of five-year olds, “Who can draw an elephant?” every hand would pop up with plucky enthusiasm. Instantly. Ask the same question to a group of twenty-five-year olds, and you’ll be lucky to get one volunteer. Why?  Because somewhere along the line, they made a decision that they weren’t artists and, in doing so, shut down their potential creativity in this area. Of course, not everyone can be a David Shepherd when it comes to drawing or painting elephants, but our unwillingness to have a go—often due to fear or failure—is the issue.

In their book, Art and Fear, David Bayles & Ted Orland carried out an interesting study. Dividing a sample set of people into two groups, the individuals in each group were given a specific goal.

Group A was graded on the quantity of pots made in a specified time frame. In other words, these individuals were to make as many pots as they could in the allotted time.

Group B was graded on the quality of making just one pot in the same time frame. These individuals had to make a single pot, aiming for perfection, in the allocated time.

Who do you think consistently produced a pot of the highest quality? Group A! Why? Through making many pots in the prescribed time frame, members of Group A learnt and improved. Group B members were not allowed to fail and therefore, were not able to improve and succeed.

When we encounter failure and call it quits, we miss out on the opportunity to learn and grow. And we might just pull-up fractionally short of a watershed moment. Yes, a persistent lack of fruitfulness down a specific path might be a sign you’re on the wrong track—and wisdom would dictate you try another path. However, if you know you’re on the right path, don’t let failure stunt your inherent creativity. As Henry Ford said, “Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.”

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