Making room for inspiration on the studio sofa
Another question I'm often asked is how I deal with creative burnout in the industry. It's a fair question because if your job is to come up with ideas every day, people assume there's a switch somewhere that you simply flick on at 9am. I wish there was. I'd have bought shares in the company years ago.
Creative inspiration for me doesn't just come from an artistic movement, a collection of art, a series of paintings, music, films or television programmes. It also comes from the intentional rulebook being torn up, the spontaneous thought, or the accidental moment during the creative process. Times, habits and ideals change. Yes, I didn't wear socks in the late '80s with my baggy trousers and I daydreamed about driving a Ferrari 308 GTSi (the early series wasn't fuel-injected) around Hawaii. I also thought shoulder pads were perfectly acceptable.
''Yes, I didn't wear socks in the late '80s with my baggy trousers and I daydreamed about driving a Ferrari 308 GTSi around Hawaii."
The creative magpie
I've been fortunate enough to spend decades working in a creative industry that's constantly changing. Technology changes. Trends change. Clients change. The tools certainly change. What doesn't change is that ideas still come from people paying attention and lots of recycling with a notion of adding value to the layout. Advertising agencies of the '80s and '90s had libraries of books. Today, they've been replaced by the internet. I still like the tactile experience of looking at books, so I have my own collection in the studio rather than looking at the screen every time. I've become a bit of a creative magpie over the years. I collect ideas, images, conversations and observations without always knowing when they'll become useful. They usually do.
The rule book is a serving suggestion only
Watching Wes Anderson films reminds me to work with structure, form, colour palettes, intentional art direction and perhaps more importantly, accidental creations. It's a reminder to be disciplined while remaining commercially savvy, knowing when perfection is worth the extra hours and when it isn't. That's not easy. I have a framed print on the studio wall that reads, "Perfectionism is another word for procrastination." Ironically, it took me eight attempts to get the typography right. You don't need to look up the definition of irony in the dictionary for this one. It's there as a reminder that sometimes near enough really is good enough. Finish the job. Move on to the next one. It's also a reminder not to spend six months watching every review on YouTube about a lens I want to buy before talking myself out of it. Sometimes the inspiration is simply to buy the lens and get on with the job. We're all guilty of it. Hello, I'm a sentence offering no value to the narrative, my job is filling space to fill the line.
''Perfectionism is another word for procrastination. Ironically, it took me eight attempts to get the typography right. You don't need to look up the definition of irony in the dictionary for this one."
Then there's Andy Warhol's advice to David LaChapelle, "Do whatever you want. Just make sure everybody looks good." I should put this quote on the studio wall as well. If there is only one takeaway from this piece, make sure it's that. There's an enormous amount of wisdom wrapped up in one wonderfully simple sentence. Creative work doesn't have to follow trends. It doesn't have to please everyone. It simply has to make people feel something.
One of the greatest American mid-century architectural photographs, taken in 1960 by Julius Shulman, is the image of the Stahl House (Case Study House No. 22), high above the Hollywood Hills at night overlooking Los Angeles. Two women sit in conversation inside the glass house while the city sparkles below them. It wasn't created by a focus group, demanding clients or a mood board art directed to within an inch of its life. The women weren't professional models at all. They were members of the production crew whom Shulman asked to sit down moments before pressing the shutter. One spontaneous decision transformed a beautiful architectural photograph into an iconic image. You'll need to Google it yourself. The commercial licence to reproduce this image would probably cost about the same as a reasonably priced family car. The Hollywood sign substitutes nicely.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house is another favourite story. After months of silence, his client rang to say he was on his way to see the finished plans. Wright calmly sat down and drew the entire concept in a matter of hours before the meeting. The design had existed in his head all along. It simply hadn't reached the paper yet.
Again, you'll have to Google that one as well. Wright's reasonably priced car will be more expensive.
The studio sofa theory
Creativity isn't always about endless sketchbooks, brainstorming sessions and trying to force an idea into existence. Sometimes the work is happening long before you realise it. Your brain is quietly joining the dots while you're getting on with life. The cornerstone of humanity isn't travelling to galaxies far, far away. It's much closer to home on a journey of self-discovery somewhere at the back of your own mind. I've spent many hours lying on the studio sofa. To the untrained eye, namely my partner, I'm fast asleep. She has never quite understood the creative process. In my mind's eye, I'm creating the best image ever projected onto the back of my eyelids. Sadly, once created, it rarely lives up to the expectation I visualised on the sofa. I should stick to underhand padding.
Style it out
I rarely panic if I'm having what feels like an uninspiring week. Experience tells me it won't last. Some days everything flows effortlessly. Other days every idea feels like it came from a 1997 corporate brochure. That's just part of the process. Inspiration can also talk its way in and out of things. The post shoot creative rationale explaining the bold, contemporary approach when, in reality, I'd simply used the wrong camera settings. Rookie mistake. The client loved the images even more. If they only knew. Seriously, I should stop this padding out.
You may find yourself standing in a large London photography studio with an entourage of fifty people hanging on your every word, looking to you for inspiration and you simply don't have it that day. And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here"? Sometimes you just have to pull up your big boy pants and get on with it. At the very least, look and sound like you're styling it out and everything is naturally under control. Yes, it's a shameless paraphrase from Talking Heads. Other all-time rock, pioneering new-wave music bands are available.
Inspiration is looking up, not down at the footpath
People often ask where I find inspiration now after so many years. Everywhere. It's in architecture. It's in typography on an old enamel sign. It's in the way somebody has arranged fruit in a market. It's in watching people interact in cafés. It's in conversations. It's in museums. It's in music. It's in opening a book that has absolutely nothing to do with design or photography. Sometimes it's even in terrible design because understanding why something doesn't work is every bit as valuable as understanding why something does.
Not drowning, waving
The problem today isn't that we don't have enough inspiration. It's quite the opposite. We're drowning in it. Every swipe presents another perfectly curated photograph, another AI-generated image, another trend, another reel telling us the ten things every creative should do before breakfast. Somewhere amongst all that noise, it's remarkably easy to stop listening to your own instincts. I've learned that if I spend too much time looking at what everyone else is doing, the penny drops. I put the phone down and continue typing this sentence to fill the line.
The lead singer always gets the girls
At the age of twenty, a group of friends and I decided to form a band. Let's be honest, it was only to meet girls. Nobody wanted to be the drummer. The band split up due to creative differences before we'd even played a note. Probably just as well. I grew up listening to my mother belting out Patsy Cline while my friends were immersed in heavy metal. That would have been an interesting playlist. Our cultural conditioning begins much earlier than we realise. I never understood Danny La Rue, Dick Emery or Dame Edna Everage as a young child.
Fill the tank to fill the void
When I feel creatively burnt out, I don't stare harder at the screen. I leave it. I go for a walk. I visit somewhere I've never been. I browse a bookshop without knowing what I'm looking for. I wander around an art gallery. I listen to conversations. I fill the tank again rather than trying to drive on empty. The irony is that the best ideas almost never arrive when you're actively searching for them. They appear halfway through making a cup of tea, walking the dog or driving home, usually at the most inconvenient moment possible when you have absolutely nothing to write them down with. I'm old school and don't use Siri. Dear Siri, please add three words to this sentence.
''I've stopped chasing inspiration. I've learnt to make room for it instead."