What is the difference between physical art and ephemeral art? You may be thinking that this is a case of physical activity versus art forms that require more introspection to discern their meaning, such as dance versus poetry. But when I speak of physical art, I’m not referring to things like ballet or an orchestra. Rather, physical art is the kind of art that produces a physical product. Art that you can hold in your hands rather than art that you view once, and then it’s gone forever.

A painting is a physical art form, one that you can hang on your wall, whereas an orchestra’s production is more ephemeral — once you’ve listened to the songs, they’re gone, the sound vanished into the ether. Ballet is an ephemeral art form. You’ll sit in your balcony seats and watch the dancers perform their show, and once that show is over, you’ll never again be able to witness those exact dancers performing those exact moves in time with the exact music that you heard on that night. But sculptures, those are physical. Purchase one for your home put it on a pedestal, and you’ll view it day after day, unchanging.

I’ve talked a lot before about things like “photo-a-day” projects and other ways to get a little bit of photography into your life on a daily basis. And I do think that it’s important to be creative daily. It’s just like exercise: If you don’t use it, you lose it. The last thing we photographers need is to let our creative muscles waste away.