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Tips for Fostering Creativity

So what we're going to finish with are my five tips for fostering creativity because it all starts with the fact that I didn't think I was creative at all so now I'm looking back saying well okay so what I think I'm super creative now I mean not not crafty creative notice did you notice how none of that involves craft ability really it's like you throw stuff on people like none of it was that type of creativity so I went through and I thought of the five things that I think have made me more creative the five things that I would recommend for all of you okay, so the first tip is tio actively seek inspiration I I got mad at myself recently because where I live in new york city I'm directly across the park from the met the metropolitan museum of art and I realised I'd been a year and a half since I went it's a eight minute walk and it was a year and a half so I went twice in the last couple weeks because I was like it's right there and I want to be inspired so the point is you have to ma...

ke you have to make an effort to it you have to set aside these days because we have to set aside time for marketing henry touching and learning obviously but then if you learn and you're not inspired to create that nothing happened so like it's just us important as learning is getting inspired to use that so you have to actively seek it out and some just shoot a couple examples I went teo and our exhibition who's insulation artists what he did is he took a room and he filled it with balloons and the idea was as you walked into the room even though someone on the other end of the room you were never touching your space affected there's and there's affected yours and so is how we're all affecting one another in different ways it was a really beautiful insulation but I saw it and it had big big windows and skylights and it inspired me so I ended up doing this you cost effective ready to windows behind her with really stretchy white fabric like it was ninety nine cent fabric from from jo ann fabrics ninety nine cents a yard so I gaffer's tape did above the window ok and we attached that and then once a party city of bought wait balloons and my friends were the florist had these extra branches that she was throwing out so I borrowed it from her and that's it no lighting it's just back light from the windows my walls in the studio are white so I overexposed just the light bouncing around is what gave that effect but I wouldn't have been inspired if I had gone out to see the art installation so another example is I saw the movie well the nuisance city movie with the newest one and I was like, okay, time to go create sin city and so then I made these two photos after and I hadn't really done any of this like since health you know, I've done a little bit of film noir black and white but not this really like vampy sexy interpretation of it because I saw inspiration I went and saw a movie I'd heard it was kind of bad, but I knew it was kind of pretty so I ignored the badness and watch the prettiness and it was totally worth it so I sought out that inspiration okay? So step number one to make a point of it even when you're busy like even just an hour on a sunday to go through pinterest five hundred px look, whatever it is that inspires you, okay? The next tip to foster creativity is to try something new and it doesn't just I'm not just meaning like photo techniques because I recommend my my recommendation is you watch this class go pick one of them, filled your little prison thing and take it out on location I mean honestly have shot landscapes with it well not landscapes, cityscapes because we don't have landscapes in here sitting okay, but I went around the city escape and got really cool abstracts and it was off so try something new just pick one of these and try it for inspiration and so you know, I got when I got a macro lens was like obsessed we're getting all these close up mackerel in shots and I tried a new light modifier this one over here is called a spot projection pro photo makes one where you can buy go bose that you stick in and it puts patterns on the face and try something like that but recently I'm not super duper outdoorsy, but I'm also not bad I grew up on a farm so I'm not super wimpy I taught in peru and it took my mom with me and went to much impeach you it was just the idea of seeing something new I and that's me okay, but just the idea that we went someplace new I was inspired by the colors and textures that I saw in peru and I have an idea for a fashion editorial from something that I saw there and I created a really cool cinema graph that was a landscape that I don't shoot landscapes but I love it and got a lot of good response and it inspired me to try other things, so so I'm just trying something new get secret so it's food, music travel we like just something that's not in your everyday routine because otherwise you'll do the same thing over and over again okay, my next tip is to give yourself assignments and deadlines because I know that if I don't block off a day on my calendar or two or three in a month and say personal shoot day, it will not happen it absolutely not because I could always fill it with other projects at any given time, but I actually make it a point that I have to have those shoot days. So for me, I average four personal shoot days a month, so every month there's a parachute from sunup to sundown, but they usually dio where I shoot, where I'm not getting paid it's a new technique that I want or maybe it's that shoot, sling creative to pitch to a client or it's just for fun or someone else has an idea. I don't even I care what it is, but I'd try four days a month I never get lesson too I always have to, but I aim for four months my tip number four I think that this is probably probably one of the most important ones is to surround yourself with other creative people because when you see their creativity feed off of it, then you don't feel weird when you have a bizarre creative idea because when you're around non creative people and you tell them this really weird chri, I want to cover a girl and black white powder and take pictures of her there just like okay, you know, you know, they don't give it, but then someone else is an artist. They get excited for you similar to that. My, my dearest father is not a creative addle, my dad's like stockbroker financial investor. He is not creative, but he's super supportive, and that was always awesome. He would have no idea why I chose to do something, but he would be supportive of it. It's really funny to sometimes you look at one of my photos were looking a magazine, my dad is not a photographer knows nothing about it and look at her go I think she could have pulled her chin out and down a little bit when I go, but I know that this is good, uh, but just being around the right people, so I think that means cutting out people that are crappy. I'm cutting out the people that tried to bring it out, and if it's family can't exactly cut him out, but you didn't find other people that filled that void, surround yourself with creative people. So for me, I hang out with all you awesome people so that's inspired, and then I follow people like follow you on instagram and get inspired by the stuff I see there, but even beyond that, as a fashion photographer I'm inspired and I'm more creative because on a shoot I've got a hairstylist and makeup artist that live and breathe hair and makeup and I've got a ward with us that lives and breathes that and I've got all of these people that their life is dedicated to the art so when I get with them they're showing me inspirational I mean just all I want to try this and then they come up when I do with makeup so even if I show up totally uninspired I could kind of pass the buck to them and I'm still going to come up with my uncle because at least one of them's got the passion excitement to get us all going so that's why I think it's super important if you've got the people that aren't creative I mean they're fine in your life but you've gotta have some of those creative friends you have tio and they push you and get you excited when you see what they just did nearly crap I better go do something so I think that's really important isn't here is just an example I wanted to include this because we just did the constant light studio stroke mixed that's exactly what this is this was an editorial that this makeup artist approach me and her and her friend who was a wardrobe so she said we want to do like apparently there's there's a type of alien and like in our lore you know that's some tall, pretty blonde beautiful alien people I don't know plate played ian's she wanted to do that okay, okay, cool. I don't know nothing about this, so why don't you just put it together and I'll shoot it and then it showed up and I'm like, oh my gosh this is also and then I wanted to do the constant stroke mix because I got like, you know, kind of the lycan fabio energy and futuristic so I showed up I had no idea what was going on they put it in front of me but that made me creative because they were creative so that was lucky being on this people brought in the same vein that girl is telling you about before one of my best friends brooke shade and she's having a conference october second through fourth in north carolina and it's not just about photography there are photography tutorials there, but the whole point is to bond and be around other creative, passionate people. So we have like group yoga sessions and three vegan meals day if you mean you can have other males too, but like it's like it's it's more of emotional and creative retreat to be around other people that understand what it means to be creative, what it means to struggle as a creative all of that stuff so I don't usually show too much emotion, but I bet this one I will it's going to be fine it's gonna be good excited so that's protein, passion convention and that's where it's going to be so it's like that makes that before. Okay, so my last tip my last suggestion is to start a personal project because when you start a personal project that gives you a theme, it makes you look for inspiration because you've already got this seems you're you're opening up and interpreting the world through the eyes of that personal project it's giving you the deadlines but that also you're working towards something in the end that it feels like a goal like it could be a book or a gallery show or whatever it may be it's just when you give it a name, give it a project it makes it happen and I also think if you say to somebody hi, I'd like to borrow your excellency I'm working on a personal project they feel like they're part of an artistic endeavor instead of just like, oh, I like that hat can I borrow it? I would love to borrow that head piece I'm working on a personal project the collection of and then it's it's more of their engaged in fine art piece, so I'm just going to share a personal project that I have ongoing and I've been talking tio a couple people, because I want to do a gallery show I started it, I wanted to a gallery show of it and how it started is I was looking at my portfolio, I was like, all right, I want to do personal project, but here's the thing I don't really do emotions or depth make I mean, I do in everyday life, but not in not in photos, I do clean and bold and graphic, so when I say personal project, it doesn't mean it needs to be like the story of the hardships of your life. It could be a totally could be or it could be with story of someone else's life mine wasn't I said, okay, I want to shoot something fun and I can be that my eyes just eat up like selling that just feels good issue. So it's it's kind of like it's like the candy of, you know favorite I don't know that's how I feel about photography so eyesight and my portfolio I love red I just want to shoot something that's already endless red do a gallery show red book of red, whatever. So I did it from a personal project I wrote down all of the things that I thought of that could be read it could be read gels, red lips, red eyes, headpieces, clothing, nails, flowers like all of these things I could explore in red and I made a list much longer than this and then I set myself out to seek out inspiration looking online on pinterest seeking things out, talking to other people asking my wardrobes us are there red dresses my makeup artist of ideas for red makeup are there red hotels with red rooms all of this stuff? So I'm just going to show you just a couple that's a lot more than these so in the very basics as I reached out to my wardrobe silas and said can you bring me a red dress to shoot? And so she got these beautiful textured red dresses so I'm shooting like red on red I want to walk into a space where it's just red overload so she's like okay, that was cool let's test out red makeup and so I decided to shoot with this action shot with the eighty megapixel camera and so like this could blow up the wall size you could walk into an exhibit like through her lips I don't know I could be cool and creepy, okay, but let's go mohr insist example all right, so this is why personal projects are beneficial I'm like I'm shooting a red project I'm going to go on etsy, an ebay and online and search red stuff let's search redhead pieces so I went on at sea and I search redhead pieces I thought all of these redhead pieces like these are awesome, so I reached out to the designer on etc and I said now these pieces a really beautiful if you lend them to me now I'll pay for the shipping and everything I'll give you some really, really beautiful images in exchange and that'd be a better showcase of your work then sitting on the mannequin head and so she said, and I can't imagine like if she made these selling them and not having, like, an incredible picture of them who said sure, and he sent them to me and I made a whole bunch of different pictures from them um, and this was I had no idea what to do with the makeup, the makeup artist that she thought it looked like a like a seven tour or what a minute our kind of thing and she went to build off of that, um I love like the picture on the right. I really liked off that siri's so red on red, but I wouldn't have gone out looking for these headpieces if I didn't have the personal assignment, the personal project, and then it would have maybe been a little bit more difficult to reach out to the person if I just wanted to borrow them, but instead I could show her samples that have already done for this project so she knows the quality of work in the direction that I'm going. And then I went on ebay and I was searching red stuff and I found a red parachute is one hundred dollars. How to read parachute online. We went and we found a dress that matched and we had the dress flew up in the air and I had assistance go flying with that parachute. It was really good behind the scenes worked out them on dh, then things like red gels so I could gel the background. I could gel the dress in the picture on the right is that constant strobe mix that you'll see in the tutorial that I told you about. So I had sparkly dress and red gels and all of that, and I came up with red queen of hearts, so to wrap that all up, I know that I come to seattle often several times a year, and I was looking online and I this was one year ago. So this project is a year and like a month old just kind of keep adding to it, and I knew that it was coming, and I found out that the fourth floor of the seattle public library looks like that it's like, is actually funny because when the elevator doors opened, I was shipping out was amazing, so I shot with one light. This is super cost effective. One light plugged into the wall over there and it was had a grid on it, and I did constant light lay on location in the strobe mixed, and then I move my camera and do you know the headpiece that she was wearing before that's that piece, the thirteen dollars ski cap? But it depends on how you stylist there's a thirteen dollars ski camp. This is a plain red dress. Those glasses my stylist did send with me, but, you know, maybe you have connections for that in the next shot. There's, a headpiece desire designer that I originally saw, and joel grimes, facebook, he had worked with her. I said, you reached out to her is that, hey, I'm doing a red project. We make me headpiece. She made me the one on the left shifted up here for my creative I've and I shot it, or in this next one has cost effective as it gets that thirteen dollars headpiece and extra red fabric, but the red fabric looks like some kind of epic something because it's blurry because I was wiggling my camera so all of these things it's cost effective. But I wouldn't have looked for the location if I didn't have the personal project and I would have been gathering these things and I would have had the inspiration I wouldn't have shot it for a deadline and all those things. So those are my tips to you to actively seek inspiration to try something new, give yourself assignments in deadlines, surround yourself with creative people and start a personal project. I think the most important thing that it all comes down to is exactly what you guys are doing here is never stop learning, and I am constantly watching creative five classes or I'm going to museums, we're trying to listen to somebody, but I think for creativity, it's the two parts figure out what inspires you and keep going back to it, but don't get stuck. You try new things and actively seek it out because you discover things that you never knew would inspire you, so I look forward to seeing what you guys create and let me know if you make anything inspired by this class, I'd love to see it, lindsay about everyone.