During the Sakura season in Japan, I was trying to capture some unique shots of the ever so popular flowers. The truth is, I have took 100s of photos and I haven't found that unique masterpiece.
Being creative in this fast paced glamor glitz world is something many of us lack. Many of us seem to try and copy what others are doing because as the saying goes, success leaves clues. While this is not a bad approach, we all know there is joy in being creative and rewards as well.
Through listening to a talk about Seth Godin's book titled "Purple Cow", from the eyes of a photographer, it dawned on me that I needed to take my creativity to an entirely new level, a remarkable one. The truth is, every content creator is striving to be unique subconsciously but the base of reference, a lot of the times, comes from stimuli in our environment. Where else would it come from? How about the imagination?
In the book the Purple Cow, a scenario is given about driving through the countryside in...lets say France and coming across a beautiful landscape of lush greenery and farm animals that grabs your attention because you are from the city and this is not an every day sight in the bustle. You take many photos and are in awe at the scenery.
As you drive through the countryside, you see more lush greenery and the same farm animals, especially brown cows. After some time, the scene gets boring and you stop taking pictures. But if you saw a purple Cow, then you would get the camera out, not only that, you would be sure to share the story of the purple cow with all your friends.
In the digital field, we can easily apply the brown cow effect. Scrolling through Instagram, 1,074 pictures are uploaded per second, 64,440 per minute and around 4 million per hour. In a day, that is 95 million photos, most of which will be brown cows.
With attention spans shrinking each generation and content pouring off the edges of the internet, keeping the purple cow concept in mind and practicing it is no longer a good thing to do but it is an absolute necessity if one wants to be successful in this digital world.
I took these photos before listening to the talk about the book, the purple cow. But even then, I can see I was trying to be creative. It is ingrained in us to do/ create something unique but that will only create something good, something people can admire if they have eyes of the beholder. But creating something remarkable that will make them want to tell others, takes a new mind set, imagination and risk taking. But when you really think about it, what else is there to do? The same ole shit or remarkable shit?
To summarize what I have just said in Jamaican patois: you just haffi do yuh ting different.
