As you grow as a photographer, expand your horizons, realise your dreams of working as a professional or just making money off your photographs, chances are you will find yourself shooting things you may not of considered shooting earlier in your life. That’s just the way it works, if your looking at making money off your photos and making a living from it you are, at some point, going to have to shoot something someone pays you to shoot, even if that something isn’t what you normally shoot, or "like" to shoot.
This is normal, in fact some photographers have made a great living out of photographing the things that pay well over the things they like to shoot. That isn’t to say they don’t like what they do for work, I guarantee that any successful photographer loves what they do. However it may be a bit hard to get an add agency or a magazine to pay for that shot of the scene from your subconscious depicting an Astronaut in front of a TV eating pop corn, there just inst much of a market for that. You need to be able to shoot the things that pay your bills and enjoy it enough to shoot it day in and day out.
But any photographer worth his salt will tell you that the same thing every day can get stale very fast and eventually lead to your demise. So how do we avoid this abrupt end, this creative death? By feeding your creative soul. As a photographer YOU MUST keep yourself inspired! and you need to make time to shoot the things you want to shoot, for no other reason then keeping your self from going stark raving mad!
I personally am always making notes of ideas I have, keep a diary with me for notes and images that I think of to turn into possible shoots in the future. If your out and about and you see something you like, stop for a moment take a note of where it is and return there when you have the time, if you see it, or think of it and then decide that you will remember it later, 8 out of 10 times you will forget, the dullest pencil is better then the sharpest mind in my book.
Another thing is to keep your self inspired by others, I have a bunch of photographers blogs and sites that I visit regularly to gain inspiration and see what people are doing all over the world. No man can have all the Ideas, so look at what other people are doing to keep their creative souls alive, and you might pick up a few ideas yourself. One of my favourites is Chase Jarvis A photographer who is very concerned with keeping the creative flame burning, always trying to come up with new ideas for his own personal images to keep himself inspired. Is it any wonder he is one the most successful photographers around.
Watch films, go to exhibitions and just try to keep shooting what you want, even if it means reaching into your own pocket a little, the more your creativity grows, the more ideas you will have for you day to day work and the more you will love life!
Keep shooting!
Glen
