Creativity is learnable. Everyone has the potential to become creative, provided that they put in the effort to develop their creative abilities.
First things first, let’s make sure we’re on the same page regarding terminology. When I say “creativity,” I mean the ability to see a problem and come up with a novel and useful solution.
One thing I’ve learned is to write down 100 ideas about one topic. We always have a lot of ideas in our heads, but there are often only about 7 at a time, even though it feels like much more.
You have to write them all down or draw them, and then move on. Don’t get emotionally attached to any of the ideas. If you like them, just mark them and move on. You can also change a single idea in different ways.
It’s very important to write down all of the ideas that come to mind.
Imagine your brain is a bowl and ideas are water that it fills up with. If the bowl is full, you won’t have any fresh water, so you need to empty it and keep it that way. To put it another way, you need to keep your mind clear and empty to come up with new ideas. By “emptying it,” I mean writing them down so your brain doesn’t have to work as hard to remember them.
Soon, you’ll have trouble coming up with ideas. For me, it takes between 30 and 50 new ideas before I start to feel like I’m struggling. After that, it would take a lot of work to keep going, but this is the only way to dig and push your creativity on purpose. Your brain has to put the pieces together to come up with new information. Ideas may come to you in waves, with a bunch at once and then nothing for a while, forcing you to wait and dig in.
You will learn how to look at your topic from a different angle, which will give you more ideas until you run out. This is how it goes.
If you’re interested in expanding your creative output, then expanding your knowledge of a topic is a good place to start.
To this end, it is crucial that you fully understand the nature of the issue you are attempting to resolve.
You might ask why this kind of exercise would work.
Too many individuals who create things, act on the first few ideas that come to their minds. Then, they would spend a lot of time and energy to do just a small part of what they could think of and what they could do.
Basically, it takes time, practice, and writing down your thoughts on pages and pages until your mind is free of all the biases and general information that inspired you to make something original. But you cannot guarantee you’ll get what you want. It’s hard work, and you have to do it over and over again.
The most important part of what we did was making all of these images for ourselves and not caring if they were ever seen by anyone else. This was the key for us.
I decided to be open about what Jake and I have been thinking, how we did it, and what the result was.
It is clear how differently we approach and explain ideas. It shows how our styles of photography are different.
To conclude: if you create for your own satisfaction rather than the approval of others, you will boost not only your ability to think creatively and solve problems but also your knowledge and skill in photography. To do so, not for the benefit of others, but rather for your own sake, is crucial.
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