Do You LOVE What You’re Doing?

Do you LOVE what you’re doing?  Does your current project so excite you that you spend your lunch hour working on it?  Do you rush home so that you can use that last hour of sunlight to create a few more images?  If not, then perhaps your current project isn’t the right one for you…at this time.

I believe that you must be completely excited about the project you’re working on or it will not be your best work.  I’ve seen many pursue a subject simply because it’s “unique” or “different” with the hope that this will be enough to earn them notoriety.  However my experience has been that “different for different’s sake” is not enough; there must be real passion in the project or it will fall flat.

I keep a list of potential projects and every new idea, silly or not, goes on this list for future review.  With time some of these ideas look even sillier and I wonder what it was I was thinking!  However some ideas are really good ones but just not right for us at that moment in time.  That’s why I write down every idea, review them periodically and never remove them from the list.  You just never know when these ideas and your mood will mesh and a fantastic synergy will be born.

There is such an emphasis in the world today to be different and to get noticed.  There are trends that photographers sometimes feel they must follow in order to be in vogue and fit in.  There is so much competition that we all feel this desire to be unique so we can rise above the fray.   While each of these factors must be considered as we make our long term plans, they should not be our primary focus.  What we must focus on is producing art that is uniquely ours, work that is true to our vision and producing something that reflects our passion.

Only then do we stand a chance of being “successful.”

Cole

P. S.  I’ve promised several people that I’d create a blog entry on what “success” means, I’ll do that soon.