I wanted to post this fantistic, wonderfully written and inspirational piece of wisdon by Austin Kleon. He brings up a lot of the subjects that I talk about during my university lectures, and does so in a way that is truly meaningful to anyone starting out in any artistic field, including photojournalism/photography. Here are a couple of quotes to get you started:
"I get a lot of e-mails from young artists who ask how they can find an audience. “How do I get discovered?”
I sympathize with them. There was a kind of fallout that happened when I left college. The classroom is a wonderful, if artificial place: your professor gets paid to pay attention to your ideas, and your classmates are paying to pay attention to your ideas.
Never in your life will you have such a captive audience.
Soon after, you learn that most of the world doesn’t necessarily care about what you think. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. As Steven Pressfield said, “It’s not that people are mean or cruel, they’re just busy.”
If there was a secret formula for getting an audience, or gaining a following, I would give it to you. But there’s only one not-so-secret formula that I know: “Do good work and put it where people can see it.”
It’s a two step process.
Step one, “do good work,” is incredibly hard. There are no shortcuts. Make stuff every day. Fail. Get better.
Step two, “put it where people can see it,” was really hard up until about 10 years ago. Now, it’s very simple: “put your stuff on the internet.”
"Creativity is subtraction.
It’s often what an artist chooses to leave out that makes the art interesting. What isn’t shown vs. what is.
In this age of information overload and abundance, those who get ahead will be the folks who figure out what to leave out, so they can concentrate on what’s important to them.
Devoting yourself to something means shutting out other things.
What makes you interesting isn’t just what you’ve experienced, but also what you haven’t experienced.
The same is true when you make art: you must embrace your limitations and keep moving.
Creativity isn’t just the things we chose to put in, it’s also the things we chose to leave out. Or black out."
Take care of yourself.
Eat breakfast, do some pushups, get some sleep. Remember what I said earlier about good art coming from the body?
Stay out of debt.
Live on the cheap. Pinch pennies. Freedom from monetary stress means freedom in your art."
These are just a few of my favorite points that Austin brings up. Make sure to read his full post to really get the benefit of his ideas.
Wow! Fantastic! Thank you, Zoriah! Austin rocks! And he's said things incredibly important.
Very inspiring!
Thank you!
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Thank you for sharing this very wise advice for creators. It applies universally to anyone who wishes to cultivate something beautiful in this life (though most are not as abundantly gifted as you, Zoriah.)
But we can all do our part to leave the place a little better, no?
Take care,
Lisa
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