Negative Space #003
Creative Consistency
Welcome back to Negative Space.
I hope the month of May has treated you well with lots of warmth and sunlight. Personally, this month has been busy, but in a good way. This month we celebrated my daughter turning 1, Maddi and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary, I’ve been able to shoot a lot of film for weddings and different shoots, and also have shot a lot of super 8 video for various projects.
With all the creative busyness though, I’ve found myself more lazy in picking up my camera. Even as I’m typing this I’m getting ready to go start one of the biggest and most time consuming photography projects of my career, and finding myself not really wanting to go. I wouldn’t say I’m in a creative drought, but maybe more so burnt out of doing things that only help pay the bills.
These feelings are normal and it’s ok to have these times where, with whatever creative endeavor you do, it’s ok to take breaks. Many people have exhausted this topic, which is great. Especially with today’s pressure to keep creating and feeding the beast which is the algorithm. So rather than talking about taking creative breaks, which I fully endorse and think are needed, I wanted to focus on creative consistency. This month’s print was made out of creative consistency.
Dawn at the Downs
The month of May in Louisville Kentucky means it’s the month of extravagant hats, fast horses, bets, fireworks, and lots of traffic. The Kentucky Derby seems to consume the whole first half of the month and the last half is the recovery. Having lived in Kentucky my whole life I’ve always watched the Derby and attended Derby parties, but never found it that interesting and never had stepped foot in Churchill Downs. Honestly I never found it interesting to photograph until recently.
So this year I decided to go to one of the only free events of the Derby season to have a change of scenery of what I photograph. Having never photographed horses before or anything like an event like this, I was curious what I could make from it. I thought I showed up early enough, but when I got there there was a pretty long line of people waiting to get into the Downs. When we were finally allowed into the Downs, I remember thinking, “what am I doing here?”. I had no desire to be there at all.
It was one of those situations that it was not what I expected. I felt out of place with the people there and didn’t have anyone I went with. It was just me and my three cameras, which was probably too many. It took a bit, but when the horses finally came out, I could see some potential photographs. Seeing the people’s faces of all ages light up when the horses pranced right next to them was kind of cool to see as well. I started snapping photos and actually was kind of pleased with some of them. Here are a few of my favorites from my digital camera:
And finally this month’s print from my Leica M6:
Creative Consistency
One of the reasons I went to the Dawn at the Downs was because it was a simple way for me to stay creative, do something I’ve never done before, and make some images that I’ve never made. I think it’s good for people to take breaks from their art practice for sure. But I also think there are time to push for consistency in your creativity even if you only get a couple good photos out of it.
Creativity is like a muscle, and just like a muscle needs to be worked to get stronger and grow, so does creativity. Our creativity won’t keep growing if we take a break at the first burnout we feel. It will reach a ceiling of sorts. If we are consistent with our creativity we are likely to see more mistakes than good craft. But it’t important to push through those mistakes to experience growth and a better end product of whatever you’re working on.
Obviously there are times where breaks are healthy and needed, and only you can know when thats a necessity. So just know this post and this month’s print were made out of me trying to be consistent in my creativity. I hope you can find something this month to help cultivate creative consistency, whether it be trying something new or practicing a familiar craft. If you do I’d love to hear about it! Feel free to leave a comment of ways that you found to be helpful to cultivate creative consistency.
Until June, Cheers!
Andy