Shoot What You Shoot

young teenager finds his voice through his cellphone
Budding Photographer

This is Connor. He has a no-nonsense attitude toward his pictures. When his friends rolled up to him waiting at the bus stop with his cellphone pointing up at the blank sky snapping a few pics, they asked him why he was taking photos when there was nothing there. He shrugged them off and went about his business.

He takes photos. Others may not see anything significant, like a blank sky, but he shoots anyway. Many photographers have found their personal style in this same way. You take hundreds and thousands of photos, of your cat, of tree limbs, of long jumpers, of courthouses, of sunsets, of funny faces, of your work on the computer, and somewhere in there you settle in on something. You settle into the kinds of photos you want to take. You settle in to the photos that say what you want to say.

Connor has found his voice through his cellphone. He is still exploring what he wants to say, but his attitude which minimizes the naysayers is protecting him from the creativity killers which could destroy his budding photographic eye.

How do you keep your creativity alive? How do you keep your work from looking like everybody else’s?

 

Cooper Strange Written by: