Listen to your inner voice
"I have never sought out the extraordinary or the scoop. I looked for what complemented my life. The beauty of the ordinary was always the source of my greatest emotions."
Willy Ronis
When it comes to art, whatever it may be, painting, music, photography, sculpture, writing, listen to your inner voice. Don’t listen to others. When we listen to others, we get blocked, restrained, paralyzed. Like emotional chains. And that destroys our most pure way of express ourselves through art. In a certain way, as creative beings, our lives becomes our masterpieces.
"Most photographers work best alone, myself included."
Elliott Erwitt
The artist mind is free. Free minds are creative minds. As a photographer, I can say that any situation that refrains my life, it blocks me, it suffocates me, it freezes me. I am very sensorial person. Sights, sounds, touch, taste, smells, energy, environments. All that reflects on the way I see things, as a photographer and as a person. Art can also be painful. The artist's life is sometimes a lonely path and a painful one. Those are elements that bring magic to our work of art. No matter what kind of artwork that is.
"When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.”
Alfred Eisenstaedt
In order to bring our best translated as art, we need to lose the fear. The fear to disappoint our loved ones, the academic ones, the critical ones. The fear of feeling wrong. The fear to disappoint ourselves. We must create in order to keep our art alive. We can’t not learn unless we go to unknown paths. We must be surrounded by people that encourage us and respect us, not people that put us down and criticizes all the time. Criticism is good, as long as it is constructive, not destructive.
"Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected."
Robert Frank
In the course of our lives, many times we have our creativity blocked because we think we must follow other people rules, thoughts, plans. We think that this make us good people. But it does not. It makes us frustrated artists. What may be good for that person, it may be horrible for you.
“An artist must be ruthlessly selfish.”
W. Eugene Smith
I grown up listening from everyone that the good thing is to get married, have kids, buy a car, a house, have a serious profession as a doctor, engineer, lawyer. Really? Says who? Since when all that gives you happiness and a steady life? Ask yourself right now, are you happy with the life that you lead right now?
“There will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’ while other of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
Man Ray
Even if you live a life like that, you can still take your inner artist to breath and live.
The beginning may be harsh. We may feel that we are not up to the task, that we don’t have permission to live and express ourselves as artists, to show our talents, whatever arts area may that be. Somehow we feel unworthy. At this point, we think we may be a failure. That our work is totally failure. But to give up at this point is cowardice. To give up even before we start is total cowardice. We must go on, against all odds.
“It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.”
Bill Brandt
One thing I can tell you, we as artists, must never let our passion dies, never let our curiosity dies. Our inner voice must always prevail. We must listen to our inner voice. Always.
“It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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