The 2011 Inspiration Handbook for Photographers

Remember this post? It talked all about the things that successful photogs wished they learned earlier on in their careers. That post is still one of the most read pages on the blog, and for good reason – the information is invaluable. With such interest, we decided to go further with it, and produced a series of live webinars digging deeper into the topics raised in that original post.

On Friday, we got together with MAC-ON-CAMPUS and conducted the second webinar in the series — a nearly 2-hour long intense session — all about photographers finding and maintaining inspiration throughout their careers.

There’s a wealth of information here. To make it easier to digest,
we made the videos of each section available in a downloadable
guide, the 2011 Inspiration Handbook.

To pull this off, we interviewed 8 different inspiring photographers, who went on the record and shared their how they manage their own inspiration.

Photographers Corey Rich, Tim Mantoani, Scott Strazzante, Ami Vitale, Casey Templeton, Robert Seale, Brian Peterson, and Michael Schwarz contribute their own personal perspectives about inspiration and motivation.

(Part 1 of 8 videos from this webinar. Links to all the videos, and a handy PDF guide / cheat-sheet to the series are available as a free download.)

The webinar feedback was great, and attendees told us that the insights would be valuable to share with all photographers, not just students. So if you’re just starting out, or if you’re still going strong, you know that inspiration and motivation are key to productivity and success.

Inspiration is a tricky thing because where one person derives inspiration is very different than another. It’s a personal search for what works for you, and the webinar addresses this head-on.

All photographers agree that finding and keeping inspiration is critical to sustaining a productive and happy career. But even more so, as we learned in the presentation, finding ways to channel it into your work and your business can be challenging.

A few interesting highlights were:

• Personal Projects are critical. Nearly every photographer mentioned that they have active personal projects that keep them motivated and passionate about photography.
• Forcing yourself out of your comfort zone was cited by several of the photographers as being a key ingredient to enhanced creativity and an expanded skill set.
• Not being afraid to fail was identified as a requirement for growth. Those who are afraid to fail don’t try new things – and fall victim to stagnation and boredom. Failure is good, as long as you learn from it.

Each photographer shared a different “Top 10″ list with focuses on a different area within the topic of inspiration. Inside the guide is a link to each video and each each photographer’s Top 10 list.

Use the videos and this guide to find new ways to inspire yourself and take your career to the next level.

If you have 2-hours to spare, you can experience the webinar in one continuous burst.

About the author

Grover Sanschagrin
Grover is co-founder of PhotoShelter. He is a frequent contributor to the PhotoShelter blog. He loves tequila, Frank Zappa, and avocados. You can follow him on Twitter here: @heygrover

1 Comment

Renee Moore 12-24-2011

:)

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