Some days ago someone on Instagram asked this question and I loved it! How do I stay inspired? For the simple reason that ideas for this very topic had been in several of my notebooks, it is high time to share more about it.
As a creative it is important to fuel yourself in a good way. It is the basis of being able to create. It is good to know what spurs you on and what kills your creative juices. For me there are several things which help me in my everyday as an artist. Here I put together a collection of my favourite things to do or to avoid. I hope it helps you 😉
Practice Gratefulness
Sometimes I get asked how I start every wedding day with fresh eyes. For me this starts with an attitude I cultivate each wedding day in the morning when I get ready or when I am driving to the wedding. I remember what it was like to have a dream, what it was like to dream big and tell no one about it, always fearing the reactions of others and not wanting to sound ridiculous. I think all those years back to different stages of my dream coming alive and how lucky I am to be able to do what I am doing every day. I take some moments to be grateful for a new wedding day and that I get to live my dream. That.very.day.
Fuel your imagination
… outside of the medium. This is one of my favourite tips from my architecture photography professor in Bolzano. (Which was also the only photography class I ever took.) His homework for us was, read one book each week, watch one movie each day. This will help you to see stories, imagine story lines and become a better storyteller. I loved this tips a lot and still try to do it frequently even if I do not manage to watch as much as this 😉 Other than books and films I also try to look at print media regularly, see different photography styles and look at images outside of the wedding industry.
Go for walks
Another thing I love to do is fuel myself with is nature. I live in a preserved area, so this is particularly easy since the forest starts in our backyard. I love to observe the woods and fields when walking, it helps me to reflect and process things I saw and witnessed and it is like an inner cleaning. Coming back to work after a walk I always feel refreshed.
Even when walking to the studio, I try to choose as many different routes as possible. Taking a new lane or road often will train your eye to see new things, also when taking pictures.
Travel
Even if I cannot always travel as much as I like, I love to explore new places and my preferred way to do this is on foot. I love to see how the light and people might be different. I love to observe people and take note of my surroundings. Often when I am observing something my thoughts automatically wander to how I could use it for a wedding day or how could I use it in a storyline. I believe this trains my inner eye to see things quicker and then ultimately to react swiftly in order to create.
Cultivate positivity
When you think, when you speak, the people you surround yourself with. All these underlie a choice I believe we have. The choice of cultivating positivity. I am not always good at this, but I choose to become better at it 😉 It started when I speak to clients while posing them during the portrait sessions, that I tried to avoid all words with negative connotations. My aim was to avoid fuelling insecurities on a day when many of my clients are nervous. So I cancelled words like “no, not, bad, ugly, sh§t …” from my vocabulary. And now it has spread to my everyday language to an extend that friends have told me Rici, you can say, this is really bad… because it is. Of course this depends on each situation. Only recently a friend of mine was telling me about a situation where she felt embarrassed and that she had this stupid grin on her face. In our conversation she kept repeating the word stupid over and over, always referring to herself. A day later I contacted her again and told her I wished she would find a different word, because I thought she deserves a better and kinder word.
I really believe that the words we choose to speak will shape our reality. And clients will feel it and people will see it in your work.
What do you think?
Do you do one or more of those things?
Which one was your favourite tip?
