Sometimes we photographers get so caught up in photography that we forget that there are other things in life to enjoy! In fact, some of us have lots of passions—reading, writing, music, art in general, and so on. Here, we focus on photography a lot because it is a photography blog, but I do think it’s important that we all take a step back sometimes and recognize that our creative passions don’t have to be restricted to just this one medium.

It is true that we can all have lots of different artistic passions. To my mind, that whole “jack of all trades, master of none” saying needs to be tossed out. Sure, we may not become masters of several different mediums—but then again, maybe we will. Leonardo da Vinci did it, after all. Either way, exploring these different mediums, and not feeling bound by convention to stick with just one thing is important.

Why is it so important, you might ask? Well, because passions tend to bleed over into other things. Let’s say you’re a musician, for example. How many times have you spent an afternoon lost in making music? And what does your mind do as you play? Often, people find themselves dreaming up landscapes, scenes or some sort of story to go along with the song. If you’re both a writer and a photographer, then when you’re out photographing, you might very well encounter places where it seems like a story ought to take place. Perhaps you’ll find yourself exploring an abandoned house, both looking for photographs to take while letting your mind draw up an outline for a fictional murder mystery that could take place here...

Inspiration is such an interesting subject, and one of the reasons why? In my opinion, it’s because we miss a lot of what there is to be inspired by. Looking at the photographs of others is a prime example. I’ll be willing to bet that much like me, most people do the same. We look at photographs of others for the artistic inspiration. Perhaps there are techniques within them that we’d like to learn, or maybe we’re getting ideas for our own photographs. It could be that we’re admiring colors, compositions and so on. Aside from the simple enjoyment of art, this is one of the primary reasons to look at photographs or study a historic photographer’s body of work.

There are other, untouched ways to look at inspiration, however. Just think of all the things that go into photography. Marketing is a great example of this. It’s part and parcel with getting our imagery out into the world. Chances are, if you’re admiring another photographer’s work, it’s because they’ve done something to publicize that work and put it in front of your eyes. We can be inspired by the marketing tactics of other photographers as much as we can be inspired by the work that they produce.

Work ethic and devotion is another place to take inspiration from. Unfortunately, there exists a subset of people who believe that photography is the “easy” way to make art because we’re not wielding pens and brushes—simply pressing a button. But as any photographer who has spent time composing and processing knows, there is so much to this art form, much that we have to learn. All of that takes a lot of hard work and devotion—and when we’re feeling down, we can take inspiration from the hard work and devotion of other photographers...