Here once again, I just want to write a topic that already “prisoned” in my mind for long time. It is not a practical tips to do street photography, however, it is one of the main reason I keep active in street photography world instead.
Being a content creator means become a person who actively doing/producing things that we passionate about. They could be anything, photography, painting, singing, dancing, making sculpture, doing magic tricks, etc.
Why I consider being a content creator could be considered as art itself? Because we put our imagination, vision, thought, and effort to create something from zero into something meaningful based on our preference.
To do/create anything that require our creative mind, time, and effort. We do it not because of money or anything in return, but rather because of pure passion that come from our heart. No other people force us to do it, but we still give our best anyway.
Create content based on things that we like. Based on our preference. Be subjective, and do what your heart desire. Embrace the freedom of do/create anything you like.
Here are several reasons why we need to active create content in our life:
It teaches me things about how the world works
Being a content creator (in street photography) teach me to know:
- The struggle to achieve something (no shortcut)
- When to NOT give up
- Self taught is possible and effective if we have strong passion
- Accept (meaningful) critics
- To communicate with totally new strangers in unfamiliar places.
- Control self esteem (I admit I still need to learn a lot about this). Do not place it too low, and never ever place it too high.
- Knowledge is endless. Keep continuous to learn all the time is the key.
- There are billions combination of things in this world to create artistic things. Be brave to experiment.
- Art is not competition. It is self expression, based on our preference, life’s experience and how we see the world.
- Art is not math, there is no strict rule that 1 + 1 = 2. The answer could be anything based on our creative mind.
There are hundreds more point that I want to write about, but so far, I think ten points above have the most significance affects to my life now.
Become more selective to use money
As a content creator you will know better which stuff you need to buy, and which stuff will not add any value in your life. My personal experience teach me that being passionate in street photography make me really selective to spend my money now (compare before when I did not active to create content).
I do not mind to spend more for stuff that support my passion so I can create better contents, however, I limit my self to have tight budget for everything else. This way, also helpful to keep me away from unnecessary problem (Problem because own too much stuff, and confuse why I do not have enough time to use them all).
Keep learning – Special skill – Unique person
Passion will “force” us to keep learning new things. To keep develop ourself. To keep productive instead of wasting time for something that does not add value to our life.
Many people strive to become unique, be different than other “common people” around them. Personally, the key to become unique is by having special skill that not everyone have.
How to have special skill? Find a thing that we really passionate about. A thing that we want to give our best effort without demand anything in return. Learn about it deeply, develop your skill, train everyday, do not afraid to ask, keep experiment, and be hungry about new information. Understand that we all start from a beginner, we will produce bad result at first. Have faith in ourself that we will able to improve step by step because we put a lot of effort in it. It is way better to have slow progress rather than not start at all.
How to find a thing that we passionate about? My answer is: Experience it. Do not only watch, read or hear things from other people. If you think something has pick your interest but still unsure about it, then what you should do is: Simply try it yourself.
From my own experience, I never thought that I would become someone who live side by side with photography world. For the first 28 years in my life (that would be 2.5 years ago), I never touched photography seriously and never thought to have passion here. At that time I just pushed my self to own a camera, and let’s see if I could do something with it. Thankfully, it become one of the greatest thing that ever happened in my life. Photography teaches me to see world in better way.
Stop only admire other people’s work, start yours!
Consume by social media: When we start to look into Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc, only to look at other people’s progress. We admire their life, their contents, and their stuffs too much, that we start to forget about the potential of our own skill. Do not just say “wow”, instead try to achieve it as well in your own way.
Use social media in better way: Instead of only admiring other people’s work, start to learn from their creation, make a list what things we like from their work. Copy and apply their attractive points into your work, then try further develop their style by combine them with your preference. Social media is simply the biggest (and the easiest to afford) source to find art inspiration right now.
Express your mind/emotion to the world
Telling stories about your personal emotion and personal experience through your content. There is an oddly satisfaction when I able to create a photo that able to reflect my current emotion. It is like telling the world what I’m feeling right now, but in more elegant and mysterious way.
To let people guess what actually happen. Leave room for mysterious part so people can give their own thought to infuse with feeling that I want to reflect. I think this is the way how a photo able to “connect” to other people’s feeling. Read more here about create an honest photo.
Related philosophy:
To tell you the truth, these articles from Eric Kim keep empower me to create street photography content and to start this blog. I really encourage you to read them (and his other writing too!) whenever you need to boost up your courage to create art content.
That is all my thought about being a content creator. I truly hope this writing will able to encourage all of us to start or to keep continuous producing work into this world. Keep learning, experiment, and never give up on things that we passionate about.
Be strong,
Nico Harold