It’s impossible to be creative without taking tremendous risk.
Creativity is born of doing things that are outside our comfort zone.
Most people like stay inside their comfort zones and create from there. True creativity is to do things and express things that you never have before.
The bravery of the open daring leap into the unknown is one of the hallmarks of the artist.
Sometimes fro me it’s not so much a daring leap as it is a bloody knees sort of crawl to the next moment or next effort.
I’m carrying a weight of tremendous self-doubt and regret. We all have our personal burdens. Making things and taking creative risks is the only antidote to these burdens of mine. I would humbly suggest they could be the panacea for your burdens also.
I got this email below this week about my new photo course that people are mostly afraid of for a variety of reasons. At least that’s what the emails coming in have told me.
I thought it was such an inspiring view and wanted to share it with you. I hope it encourages you to take a risk creatively about something you dismissed as “not for you.”
Hi Bindu,
This decision has been very interesting for me.
I REALLY loved the idea of your first photo program. LOVED it. Was a little disappointed when you weren’t offering it live but I thought I’d just sit and see.
Then I saw the second level. Originally I wasn’t very interested. Taking pix of people? Yikes? I like the metaphor of things…signs…objects…nature not people. Black & White. Not inspiring to me.
Then today I was writing about it in my journal (on my new ipad – I’m in love).
And I realized that Black and White photos have never inspired me, moved me. They don’t feel creative enough to me.
And, taking photos of people….brought up all kinds of sh*t.
Well, it’s not “right” taking photos if they don’t know it. If they know it, then they’ll want to see it….and it won’t be good enough. It put pressure on me. Then I’d have to have conversations with strangers. Or listen to my family say it’s “oh, it’s ok”.
So, while sitting in the café, I clandestinely used my ipad to take a photo of a random guy at the next table.
I easily and quickly put it into the photo editor, quick crop.Wow…it made it more intimate.
Then I turned the effect to Black & White – and I got TEARY.
Where did that come from? It looked like a cool photo of “a day in the life”. Again, it wasn’t about it being perfect…but just doing it…brought down some sort of barrier for me.
Very unexpected.
So, my long story answer is YES. I am signing up for the course!
Even though I feel scared that I won’t be good enough…letting that feeling wash down the shower drain………
You can still sign up for the photo essay course which i mistakenly called LEVEL 2, but I really should have called it PART 2, because that’s all it really is—just another subject matter (people) and it’s black and white. There is going to be lots of instruction and inspiration.
It starts this Monday Jan 16th.
