How to get inspired before hitting the streets?
Video
I have downloaded the short version of ‘Everybody Street’ onto my main computer.|It sits on my desktop and in the low moments where the doors of creativity are closing , I crank up my useless speakers and listen, listen and watch. I really do feel the force of the players in the short movie. Gilden, Boogie and that chappie who’s name I can never remember but says ‘ If…If I can’t do this, if it’s too much, then I’m in the wrong business’ and he loops his camera over his shoulder.
Music
I’m not a music fan, in fact 9.9/10ths of the time I work in complete silence except for the chatterings of my mind, which I can assure you aren’t musical in the slightest BUT because of the video above and it’s inspiring soundtrack I do now, should I need a stand up and get going tune listen to:
Endless Boogie – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ2tw9PNmj8
Black Keys – especially their song ‘ Lonely Boy’
Both get me raring to go out and be the all american hero of the street
Images
To me an image works when it surpasses the medium its in ; when you forget a photograph is a photograph it is the bomb. Well I have a number of images I still continue to look at and think *ouch* thats it!! Not all are photographs
- Henri Matisse – Red Studio
- Howard Hodgkin – Wilfred Owen Series
- William Klein – Boy with a gun
- Saul Leiter – Anything with condensation
These images swell as I work through my practice but a few stay and continually inspire. I would suggest finding these, visiting these in the flesh, force them to become part of your life and inspiration
Compliments
The SHRC (StreetHunters.net Readers Community) is a light hearted community which helps and feeds and some of the things you guys have said in passing really resonate with me , really help, really inspire me to continue. Some are silly, some are hardcore compliments. They stick with me and mean a great deal.
Six line sentiments
The internet is full of these smushy ‘go with the flow’ phrases and little tit bits
Believe in yourself and the world will smile chocolate bananas or some such stuff…well I hate to admit it but sometimes they hit an inspirational nerve and do give me the get up to get up and go. My favourite I found whilst travelling and curtails looking for that special moment of change, it requires you to continue.
“Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water, after enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.”
The day will always appear the same to an observer but only you, your camera and your eye will know you’re on a wholly different day .
A list of objectives
I do go back again and again to my post ‘six steps to improve your street photography’ Inside is a simple list of objectives. I have tried to fulfill them one at a time but in the hustle and bustle of life I do forget to point the arrow occasionally and find it really useful to go back to the titles and work through it once again. It doesn’t matter what your list is (although I do recommend the one mentioned) but if you have ‘the Pigeon Shot’ to get, then go get it, If you have a ‘sidey’ to get then go get it, if you have a masters image you want to replicate , then go get it.
A slap
Most of the time it is lethargy which straps me into reviewing my social media again, or washing up, or polishing my shoes ( I never polish my shoes :)) but something seemingly more important stands in the way of you and going out. ‘I don’t have time’….It takes 1/250th of a second to take a photo…do it, do it now
Conclusion
Yes we all need inspiration from time to time, and we are wily creatures spending a deal of time in sabotage so I have found not one but a few reasons and tools to keep me ‘staying sharp and keeping shooting’!
Good luck and go get ‘em
