"making photos"

Rather than taking photos.

Heard this phrase recently and I've been trying to map some meaning to it -- here's my take.

Own your perspective. It reinforces the idea that photography as an art form is not about following trends or about the gear you have, but rather it's about how you see. We can never truly see things as they are -- we see things as we are.

People can look at the same thing but derive different meanings.

This is why photography is a medium for self-expression. The eye is the most important and it seems this idea is not emphasized enough. However, “the eye” isn’t just going to exist out of nowhere - it stems from a desire to notice.

It's helpful to collect information and consume the work of others but it's the responsibility of the individual to get their hands dirty and also fail their fair share.

NIGHT RUNNER

Released an instrumental mini EP ‘NIGHT RUNNER’ on the n seas. project recently. Some lessons I took from creating it -

The idea of not trying to force a result. For me in reality, this was depicted by creating a collective of tracks instead of focusing on creating a standalone. Each track served its own purpose as a portion of the whole.

I realized that it's fine to just take an idea and explore it more in depth, do that a few more times, and then thread those different ideas together if possible.

I haven't quite done this in photography yet. I think the next step would be creating something along the lines of a zine — & really just shooting to shoot instead of trying to make my best photo.

Been feeling drained creatively for a good chunk of this year but maybe this notion of letting seemingly minuscule ideas flesh out can help prevent that in the future.

CREATOR // CONSUMER

consumer - someone who collects creative energy via some arbitrary medium

creator - someone who expends creative energy via some arbitrary medium

From my observation, the consumer and the creator are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other.

For those that get far enough into some kind of creative activity, it seems there becomes this need to remain in creator mode & continue to keep forcing out content for the sake of producing content (and to meet the expectations of others).

I think this is the greatest passion killer, especially in the long term. We cannot remain in one role forever. It's an everyday dynamic we are involved in and there are levels we need to balance in order to stay passionate and keep moving forward.

Don't forget to take care of yourself. Give yourself time to rest and recharge. Appreciate the work of others but don't compare. The ideas will come.