I sat at a coffee shop earlier this morning.
People walking past, people inside talking about a variety of things. When I find myself in these positions I tend to be very contemplative about life. I’m not the extroverted type personality who will ask people to be quiet. And in this instance I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
It is a public space after all.
So with my easy cappuccino a third of the way finished I thought to myself: how do I drown out this noise? And as these rabbit holes tend to work the more I thought the deeper I went.
How do I tie this in with photography?
I read through a post on Zen Habits. The title From Chaos to Calm: My Journey to a Simple Life.
- As a photographer it is easy (sometimes necessary) to take a lot of photos. But if we focused on quality VS quantity how would it benefit our photography?
- Is it important to capture literally everything we see?
- Capture, edit, post. An endless cycle if we get caught up in the social media current. What if we learned to breathe around our photos? Let them sit and work on getting them shared at a later stage.
- If you didn’t capture an image your really wanted is your whole day a failure? Focus on being content with the work you do.
- Savor life just as it is. I enjoy this point because I struggle with comparison. Other’s have better areas for street photography thus my photos aren’t good. If I don’t have ___ subscribers it’s not worth writing. These types of things rob us of enjoyment. We hate on others and in the process neglect our own work. You might not have the same circumstance as another writer / photographer but you can make the best of your surroundings.
tl;dr
I still go through these motions today. Disliking my photography & writing because of external motivations.
It’s a natural inclination to compare. It’s how we strive forward and push ourselves to become a better version. But if it starts to make us negative and perceive others’ as “lucky” I think there lies a problem with our thinking.
If you’re reading this on a Sunday I hope it’s a good one for you.
Thanks for reading : )