On Flow
22nd July 2010, in Blog (5 Comments)
Psychologists call it Flow. It’s is a mental state. Complete focus. On the ball. In your mode. It’s the kind of state you want to be in constantly. But being a professional creative is a hard mix. On one side you have an insatiable appetite to produce images. I say appetite, but it’s more of a frustration. An anxiety to be creating. This is why you’ve dedicated your life to your craft. You’ve tasted the satisfaction of producing beauty and you’re constantly trying to beat your last work. So there are three Dozen shoots that you’re busy planning, casting and art directing. It’s a happy task but also a resource hungry task. Studio rental, model hire, the props and set design, single latte fixes, Profoto softboxes and Kauai Gogi Berry 500ml’s – these all need financing. It’s a small business but unlike a typical creative agency where one department can manage the ideas and the other department can worry about the money, both departments are intricately wrapped together in one head. You have to ‘Suit Up’ to chase invoices, put your boxing gloves on to negotiate copyright issues and often you predict cash flow incorrectly and you’re left dry for a few weeks. When under stress the mental creativity department gets all Windows on you and freezes. Maybe great photographers, like great film directors, start production companies. It’s a way to feed the creative addiction, to keep producing and keep ‘in Flow’. Maybe it’s a requirement of a modern photographer: to be a really great producer you also have to balance it with being a really great businessman.
5 Comments
July 24, 2010 2:14 pm
Zaphoto (@@mofilm)
My thoughts exactly. But the question I keep asking myself is what exactly am I going to do about it?
July 25 2010 00:53 am
Andrew Brauteseth
well, i guess the next step for me is to hire a producer?
July 25, 2010 8:54 am
Phonephotography
Sounds like a good idea.
July 26, 2010 11:42 am
Padraic O’Meara (@padraicomeara)
I’ve decided that it’s really less about hiring a producer, than it is about becoming the best producer I can, on my own terms, finding ways that I like to do business, because I’ve always found that unless I’m happy doing something I do it badly.
And giving away the producers role to someone else makes me complacent, it makes me that creative that complains that things aren’t getting done, it takes away my balls basically, the moment I take it on myself, I find myself getting happier and happier.
When I do get great producers, it’s more likely these days that collaboration is the word, not employ them, not them employ me(although all the above are still options
)
August 2, 2010 10:20 am
Andrew Brauteseth (@brauteseth)
yeah Padriac, you’re right. I think it’s a lot about becoming a more effective creative. Maybe thinking about better and simpler ways to make an idea great without having to depend on too many elements of production. Producers are neccesary for bigger commercial productions obviously, but sometimes it’s also great to have another eye and another opinion helping you with putting ideas together for smaller projects. Yip, Collaboration is the word.