My name is Michael Howard. I believe in the power of art, especially photography. I enjoy helping others and I want to leave the planet in better shape than how it was handed to us.
I'm the founder and CEO of Musea. We build online systems for photographers.
I also shoot weddings on film with a non-traditional style!

Welcome to the Musea Podcast!
This is episode #49 featuring editorial and advertising photographer, John Keatley! He has done work for such clients as Samsung, Microsoft, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Vizio, Rolling Stone, and NBC.
He has photographed such people as Annie Leibovitz, Tim Gunn, Macklemore + Ryan Lewis and Bill Gates. His work has received awards from PDN, American Photography and the Communication Arts Photography Annuals.
In this podcast John talks about how his interest in the human face, how he gains the trust of others, building a brand and the discipline of simplicity.
Connect with John
Website - (Make sure to check out the video section as well)
Instagram - (Follow him here to see his iPhone portrait series)
Tickets for the Musea Gathering in Tacoma/Seattle are now available! You can reserve your seat at http://museagathering.com
Rate and review this podcast on iTunes HERE!
Thanks so much for listening!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
The images below are by John Keatley









One of my guilty pleasures is watching the show So You Think You Can Dance. I love watching the art form of dance and seeing people tell a story through movement. I admire the years of hard work and dedication it takes to become a great dancer, which is true for everything in life.
Last week, I was sitting on the couch with my wife and we were watching the show, like we do every week, and a quote from one of the judges caught my attention. It came from Nigel Lythgoe who is also the producer of the show. Take a moment and watch this audition to see what he says.
Did you catch it?
He said, “Keep it real. Keep it honest. Base anything that you do on the experiences in your life.”
There is a lot of truth in those words!
Great art isn’t necessarily about technique. Great art is about telling an honest story. it’s about telling a story that is human, that feels real and genuine. We live in a world full of digital perfection, but we are still humans, though we are training our brains to act as computers. (That’s a whole other topic!)
We all want to feel, to be moved, to have our emotions brought to the surface. The best art moves people and not because of gimmicks or tricks or cleverness. It moves people because it cuts to the heart, it gets at our humanness the way that nothing else can.
What story are you telling? What real, emotional experiences in your life can you make art about? That’s where the good stuff lies.
The world needs better art, so go make art that is real, honest and is based on the experiences in your life.

Welcome to the Musea Podcast!
This is episode #48 featuring wedding photographer, Gabe McClintock!
In this podcast Gabe talks about how he gets clients to relax, the importance of editing and what role Instagram plays in his life.
Connect with Gabe
Website - www.gabemcclintock.com
Twitter - @gabemcclintock
Instagram - @gabemcclintock
Tickets for the Musea Gathering in Tacoma/Seattle are now available! You can reserve your seat at http://museagathering.com
Rate and review this podcast on iTunes HERE!
Thanks so much for listening!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
The images below are by Gabe McClintock










We experience life in two ways now. There is the digital way of consuming things, typically via a screen or electronic device, and then there is the tangible way, where we are in-person with the thing we are consuming. For most of us, we enjoy living in both worlds. We love the speed and connectivity of digital media, but we also enjoy unplugging and being physically present. This blog post isn’t about choosing between the two, it’s about understanding the difference between them.
As photographers, many of us want our clients to have physical, tangible prints of our work, but we also understand their desire for digital files, so they can share them with their wider audience. We want clients to have both, and for good reason. Beyond that, let’s think about other situations where we can consume something digitally or in-person.
Let’s talk football. I love football. I’m a big Kansas City Chiefs fan and I watch every single game, every year. Since I don’t live near Kansas City, I often have to watch their games on TV, but I also try to go to at least one game a year. I consume their games digitally via my TV, but I also love the experience of being inside the stadium. Both experiences are great, but they are completely different.
With one you get to sit at home, flip channels, you don’t have to fight the crowd, you get to drink your own beer at reasonable rates, you get inside information through the TV commentators and you get a closer view of the action. If you go in-person though, you get to feel like you are apart of the crowd, you get to tailgate before the game, you get to feel the energy of everyone else around you that is rooting for the same cause and you get to yell and scream without feeling weird about it. There is a sense of community and belonging when you see a game live. You are surrounded by other people that believe what you believe and who hope for the same things.
It’s like going to see your favorite band. You can listen to their music on your iPhone via Spotify, but seeing them in-person is different. Even though the same songs are being sung, it’s a different feel and we always say, ‘You just had to be there.’
Another example is art. Think about it. We have access to almost every piece of famous art ever created. Wanna know what a piece of art looks like? Just google it and you can look at it whenever you want. You can consume it 24/7, but we still go to museums. Seeing the prints of a photographer you love in-person isn’t the same as seeing them on their website. It’s completely different. Seeing photographs in-person brings your appreciation for their work to a new level.
When viewing images online, you miss the richness and subtleties of the physical print. The blacks are deeper and you can see more detail in them than you can online. The color is more nuanced and the texture of the paper can be seen, where you lose all of that when viewing them through digital media.
Now let’s think about education. Many photographers today are self-educated and mostly through the internet. We read blog posts, we watch TED talks, videos and ask our friends on Facebook how to do something better. All of this is amazing and wonderful, but there is also something about learning from a great teacher in-person. Just like the football game or the concert, it’s a completely difference experience than reading all their blog posts.
I would argue that getting a degree from Harvard via online learning, isn’t the same as being on campus for 4-8 years where everything is in the flesh. It’s simply not the same education and there is a reason online learning is cheaper and more affordable. It’s simply not as good and it’s certainly not as deep.
When you are learning online, you control when you start and when you stop. You control what you are learning. You control all the areas you want to gain knowledge in. If you get tired after an hour, you can log off. If you feel like you understand a concept enough, then you can go test it out without finishing the other blog posts about the same topic. Learning online simply encourages short-cuts and the belief that ‘ah…that’s good enough. I got that!’
When you learn from someone in-person, you can’t control when you start and when you stop learning. If you get tired, you can’t just checkout, unless you want to be rude and waste your time. When you are in the same room as the teacher, you are being taken for a journey that you can’t control. You are going to be brought to places of knowledge that you wouldn’t have thought about going to. You are at their mercy. You have lost the power of when you can check out and this is a powerful thing, because we are often taken to much deeper places when we are guided somewhere by someone else that we respect.
When you put yourself in the same room as a bunch of other students that are seeking the same type of knowledge from a respected educator, then you also gain wisdom from all of their questions and struggles. You aren’t learning simply from the teacher, you also learn from your peers in a more intimate way. The entire experience is richer, deeper and is more intentional.
This is why I started the Musea Gatherings. I believe that it’s important to get in the same room with your peers and to learn from someone that you respect. When you come to a Gathering, you don’t know every single detail of the journey you are going to be taken on. The teachers will bring up topics and perspectives that you didn’t see coming. You’ll hear questions from your peers that you didn’t think of asking, but are glad they did. You can read about similar topics online or even discuss them online in a Facebook group, but learning from an experienced photographer that has carefully planned an 8 hour education event is completely different. When you leave and go home, you’ll reflect on how much deeper and richer the experience was than anything you can experience through a screen.
You’ll tell others, ‘You just had to be there.’
To learn more about the Musea Gatherings, please visit museagathering.com
Our next Gathering is in Tacoma, WA on July 16th - 18th. The teachers are Cole and Jakob from Nordica Photography, Ryan Muirhead and Kirk Mastin!
I hope to see you there!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea

photo by Hugh Forte
Welcome to the Musea Podcast!
This is episode #47 featuring wedding and landscape photographer, Nirav Patel!
In this episode, we talk about how his engineering degree influences his work, how he sees light, his love of landscapes and the best decision he ever made for his business.
Connect with Nirav
Website - niravphotography.com
Twitter - @nikusp
Tickets for the Musea Gathering in Tacoma/Seattle are now available! You can reserve your seat at http://museagathering.com
Rate and review this podcast on iTunes HERE!
Thanks so much for listening!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
The images below are by Nirav Patel










We are excited to announce a new feature to the Musea Store! You can now delete unwanted tags in the Tag Manager! (See Screenshot Above)
This new feature allows you to get rid of tags that you no longer want or tags that you made an error on. Simply click the ‘X’ to the right of whatever tag you want to delete!
If you want to learn more about our online proofing system, sign up at mymusea.com or hit us on up Facebook at Facebook.com/mymusea
Intro music by Fhernando
Welcome to the Musea Podcast!
This is episode #46 featuring Nick Lundgren.

Nick is the media producer at Water.org! He shares with us how he got started at Water.org, how he’s personally seen the water crisis affect people and what Water.org is doing to make the world a better place!
The reason I interviewed Nick is because Musea is financially committed to supporting Water.org! 2% of all sales through the Musea Store go to Water.org to help them change the world by giving people clean drinking water. I’m passionate about this issue and I want you to know why Water.org is a great organization and how your sales are saving lives!
So far to date, Musea has given enough money to Water.org that 37 people will receive clean water for life! These lives are being changed because of your print sales and your trust in Musea! I can’t thank you enough for using the Store and for trusting us with your images!
Connect with Water.org
Get your tickets for the Musea Gathering in Seattle at http://museagathering.com<
Rate and review this podcast on iTunes HERE!
Thanks so much for listening!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
Here are a couple of videos from Water.org
Early Bird Ticket Rates for the Seattle/Tacoma Gathering END tomorrow night at midnight CST!
Save yourself some cash and reserve your seat today or tomorrow!
You can snag your tickets at museagathering.com
Here is the schedule for the entire event!
On Tuesday, July 16th, Kirk Mastin is teaching from 9am to 6pm. I’ll also be doing a brief talk about the Musea Store during lunch.
Here is what you will learn from Kirk:
On Wednesday, July 17th, Ryan Muirhead is teaching from 9am to 6pm. During lunch Angela from Richard Photo Lab will be talking briefly about the what it takes to run a successful photography business in our current culture.
Ryan will be teaching the following:
On Thursday, July 18th, Cole and Jakob from Nordica Photography will be sharing their knowledge with us from 9am till 6pm.
Here is what you’ll learn from these two amazing guys:
Not only should you come hang out with us and learn from these 4 amazing photographers, but you should also turn this into a mini-vacation!
There is no greater place to be in July than in the Pacific Northwest. The skies are sunny, the weather is a perfect 75 degrees, the food is often local/organic and the scenery is breathtaking.
My wife and I went last summer for our 10 year wedding anniversary and it was one of the greatest trips we’ve been on. Come to the Gathering, but stay a few days longer to soak in the awesomeness that is the Pacific Northwest!
Here are some photos I took on our trip there last summer:
Learn more at museagathering.com
I hope to see you there!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
You’ve probably seen this new Dove Ad. If you haven’t please watch it now before reading any further.
Ok….done? Great! Let’s move on.
This is what advertising, marketing, communicating a message should look like for all companies. Notice that there is nothing in this video about the ingredients in their products. Dove doesn’t mention how their shampoo will make your hair softer. They don’t talk about how their new bottle is eco-friendly. Heck you don’t even know what Dove makes!
Most businesses only worry about communicating their features and benefits. The small details about how their product works and what it does to enhance your life. Dove doesn’t do any of that in this ad. Not a single word.
What they do talk about is humanity, specifically the self-image of women. Dove works in an industry that constantly bombards women with messages about how they are inferior. Most companies like Dove talk about how women aren’t good enough, so to be good enough they need to buy their new fancy product.
Dove is remarkable because they are taking the opposite approach. They are saying to women, ‘YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL JUST AS YOU ARE!’ Isn’t this counterintuitive? I mean if women believe in their natural beauty will they continue to buy products designed to boost their self-image? Won’t they stop buying hairspray and shampoo and makeup? At the extreme, they might, but in general I’d say no. Women will continue to buy products like that, but wouldn’t you rather support a company that thinks you are already beautiful vs one that constantly makes you feel inferior and ugly?
I take away two main points from this ad.
#1 - Build a business around something good, something meaningful.
People don’t really make purchasing decisions based on features and benefits. If they do, they aren’t really that loyal to your brand in the first place because another business, with more money, will always trump your features and benefits.
Brand loyalty comes from people wanting to align themselves with a company they can believe in. When a company takes a moral stand and it carries some truth in it about humanity, that’s when people stick with your product, instead of jumping ship to your competitor.
What does your business stand for?
Musea stands for an improved future for photographers. We want to do this through better software, but also through education. Musea refuses to be a victim of circumstances. We are going to build a healthier industry, one that focuses on timeless images and on keeping photography as a viable career option.
#2 - The images we create affect how people think of themselves.
As photographers, we need to look at our own businesses. We even need to look at the images we are creating. I think to a degree photographers have played a vital role in hurting how women see themselves.
This topic opens up a can full of worms, but think about who you are photographing or love to photograph. Do you get excited when an attractive couple hires you, but feel a little bummed when you meet a potential client and they are just ‘average’ looking? Are you creating images that only celebrate attractive people or are you finding the beauty in ALL people that come before your lens? What do your fashion images say about women? Are you making other women feel inferior through you work? Are you saying women are only sex objects? Are you saying women are valued only based on how pretty they are? Really think about what your images are communicating. Do you even know what your images are really saying to the world?
I think many photographers today would struggle with a shoot where all the ‘pretty’ is taken away. I believe if your work only rests on how pretty the couple is or how pretty the decor is, then you still have a long ways to go as a photographer.
Whether we like it or not, images are powerful and have an affect on our minds. What messages are you sending out about other people? What does your work point to as valuable and beautiful in this world? Are you saying pretty people and pretty stuff is the only thing worth photographing or are you saying something more human, more honest?
Which side of the scale do you spend most of your time?
On Friday, April 12th at 1pm CST, I’ll be hosting a free webinar via Google+. The topic is ‘Improving Online Sales with the Musea Store’.
During the webinar, I’ll be presenting a step-by-step plan for increasing your online sales. This includes a breakdown of what you need to do before the photos go online, during the photoshoot and after the photos are online.
You can register for the webinar on Musea’s Google Community Page!
See you next week!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea

Intro music by Fhernando
Welcome to the Musea Podcast!
This is episode #45 featuring fashion and wedding photographer, Tanja Lippert!
In this episode, we talk about the negative affects of technology, how she shoots film at weddings and how she uses photography to empower women.
Tanja is one of the hosts of the FILM SHOW on the [F] FRAMED NETWORK and has been published in Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Magazine, Rangefinder, The Knot, Southern Weddings Magazine and Brides!
Connect with Tanja
Website - www.tanjalippertphotography.com
Twitter - @TanjaLippert
Tickets for the Musea Gathering in Seattle are now available! Early Bird Rates end on May 1st! You can reserve your seat at http://museagathering.com
Rate and review this podcast on iTunes HERE!
Thanks so much for listening!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
The images below are by Tanja Lippert







Here is a video showing how the Buying Guide works and how to use it to increase your online print sales! You can start using the Musea Store for your online proofing and online storage at http://mymusea.com
We’ve launched the Buying Guide and a bunch of other new features for the Musea Store!
The Buying Guide is a new tab along the bottom of your Store that you can fill with images or videos. This new feature allows you to educate your clients about the larger prints and products that you want to sell.
Do you print all your photos in-house? Then make a video about why you do that and link it to your Store.
Do you want to get more of your work hung on your client’s walls? Then show them what your framed prints look like over a couch or in a hallway.
Be creative and communicate the value of all your tangible products through the Buying Guide! To see it in action go HERE and view the first wedding!
I also recommend using Ariana’s Wall Display Guides to help you create content for your Buying Guide. Her stuff is super easy to use and is very customizable with detailed instructions.
To start uploading content, sign into your Musea Store account and go to the ‘Tools’ menu. Fill your Buying Guide with creative content. Then go to each event, select ‘Edit Details’ and assign a Buying Guide to it. You can create multiple Buying Guides! One for your wedding clients, one for your portrait clients and one for your newborn sessions! It’s as flexible as you need it to be!
Not only have we launched the Buying Guide, but we released a bunch of other updates to the Musea Store!
1 - We reduced the size of the header text on the client side.

Intro music by Fhernando
Welcome to the Musea Podcast!
This is episode #44 featuring documentary photographer, Justin Mott.
In this episode, we talk about Justin’s projects on Agent Orange, the challenges of shooting overseas and his advice for telling better stories.
Justin has been published in The New York Times, Newsweek, TIME, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler and Business Week.
Connect with Justin
Website - justinmott.com
Twitter - @jmott78
Tickets for the Musea Gathering in Seattle are now available! Early Bird Rates end on May 1st! You can reserve your seat at http://museagathering.com
Rate and review this podcast on iTunes HERE!
Thanks so much for listening!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
The images below are by Justin Mott









” We are accustomed to defining maturity in a photographer as the ability to confront honestly and express clearly his own deepest feelings. This is a valid standard, as far as it goes (though there are precious few who meet it: often, in its guise, we are offered pictures which, by pleasing the eye and titillating the intellect, camouflage their failure to affect the heart.) Beyond the self-knowledge which introspection brings, however, there is an even higher level of photographic maturity: the ability to use that self-knowledge for the purpose of confronting honestly and expressing the deepest emotions of others. “
From A.D. Colmean in his book, Light Readings
We’ve gotten ourselves into this mess to a large degree. Among photographers who shoot weddings, there is this low grade grumbling about how tough it is to run a successful business. The economy is blamed, the amount of competition is given as an excuse and the devaluation of photography is also called out for making this career path difficult. I do think some of these factors are valid, but it’s always been hard. Always. Not only has it always been hard, but most photographers chose this life because they want to live it till they die. It’s a life choice, not a trend or a fad. So many photographers today don’t build their life around the long arc. It’s all about microwaving a career.
At the Gathering in New York City last week, I spent a lot of time reflecting on where our industry is and how it has gotten to the place it has. I believe there are a number of different circumstances that have lead us to where we are in 2013, but one that’s not talked about is our role in all of this.
As the new rank of photographers has come along the past 10 years, what has been left behind are the knowledge and respect for the history of photography. The fact that a person can educate themselves through the internet is quite marvelous, but it’s also a curse.
When someone only learns through self-education, they have the power to skip all sorts of information they should have learned. It’s the difference between having a personal trainer that forces you to do the work you don’t really want to do, but need to and working on your own. Humans do much better when we have someone guiding us and keeping us accountable. This is why we have teachers, coaches, pastors, mentors, bosses and partners. Left on our own, we typically wander off track only engaged in things that give us a rush of adrenaline.
When photographers teach themselves, the discipline to learn about the deep history of photography is quickly left behind. In its place grows an ambition to see how quickly they can get a profitable business off the ground. There is no time to marinate, to ponder, to freely explore and to gain a deep reverence for the power of images.
A great number of photographers now don’t know who Edward Steichen was or Paul Strand or Minor White or Alfred Steiglitz or Lee Friedlander or WeeGee or Harry Callahan or Emmet Gowin or Nicholas Nixon or Imogen Cunningham or…
This breaks my heart, because many photographers don’t have a foundation for what great photography is. Since this understanding is missing, what has happened is that much of the wedding industry has become a contest to see who is the most clever. Photography has become about who is really witty instead of the human condition. It’s now about materialism, style, looking cool, trendy and ‘with it’, but often the substance is missing.
Wedding photography has become more clever and creative, but it hasn’t gotten deeper. Timeless truths are hard to find in portfolios these days, but it’s really easy to find someone pushing the boundaries of composition or some other basic element of photography.
Photographers tend to be obsessed with photography, but if you look back over the history of the medium, the most successful artists were more obsessed with life, with humanity. Photography was a means to self-discovery for the masters, not the end. The masters often photographed because they felt it ultimately made them better people and that they would understand the world more intimately.
What I’d like to see in the wedding and portrait industry, is to have maybe 20% of the industry creating more mature work. I want to see less images about how clever the photographer was and more about how the bride keeps forgetting her dance steps, about how the groom shows his love by caressing his wife’s shoulder to calm her nerves or about how the bride’s family laughs louder and longer than most people. I want to see photographs about the people, about family, about real life, not about off-camera lighting or about VSCO action sets.
The more we emphasize the surface of life, the less people will value photography, because anyone can learn to capture the surface of things. That’s the easy part. True artists dig deeper, they see the minute moments we all miss. How can you take your work to a deeper level? What truth are you showing us about life that enriches our souls or are you just showing off a really expensive table setting?
Wedding photography has decreased in value because most wedding images are about stuff, material possessions. Wedding images are about styled shoots and models and fancy invitations and paper lanterns. Most wedding photography today actually sells the other wedding vendors better than the photographer.This is why blogs and Pinterest are so popular.
The definition of a wedding has changed. It’s no longer about family and two people committing their life to one another. It’s about throwing a stylish party that shows how creative the couple is. It’s a game to see who can ‘one up’ the other weddings of the world. The Wedding Machine has won.
It’s like this:
‘Oh you thought your wedding was unique? Well, I had mine on top of an abandoned carousel out in New Mexico with a bunch of people in mermaid costumes floating in an inflatable pool. That’s right. My wedding kicked your wedding’s ass!’
We act as though the most important thing to photograph at a wedding is the decor and style of it all, but you know what is the most important thing to photograph? Do you know what the most important thing in life is? It’s people.
The problem is photographers have willing jumped into the wedding blog ocean and are enjoying the swim. They LOVE seeing their work get published, while each blog post shoots all of us in the foot. We are hurting our own industry by not demanding a higher standard of image. I think most of us want to be creating the types of images that most blogs don’t run, but that’s not considered ‘good’ photography anymore. It’s played off as the boring stuff that some mom will buy. That’s sad.
I would love to see several blogs and magazines, ran by people that know the history of photography and understand the power of images, honoring a higher quality. I hate that publications don’t celebrate the interesting human interactions at weddings. It’s the most symbolic day of our lives, but we are more obsessed with the symbols than the actual emotions and people that are there. We’d rather treat our clients as models than human beings with fears, hopes and desires.
When I look at most wedding photography today, I don’t know the couple any better than I would a fashion model on the cover of a magazine. The soul is missing and it’s time we get it back, because this track of personality, coolness and style is quite uninteresting in the grand scheme of life. Don’t we want future generations to know something about the interpersonal relationships of the families we are shooting rather than the fact the bride dropped an insane amount of money on blue Jimmy Choo’s?
As photographers, we have the power to redefine the industry. To say weddings need to be about THIS and not THAT. We need to set the bar, not clients and surely not wedding blogs. All the power is in the images that are celebrated and are on display. We have the power to make weddings more real and less fake, but we have to fight for it. We have to learn to see the world more intimately and we must learn how to make those types of images. Styled shoots are easy, but capturing the human spirit…now that’s a real goal worth working towards.
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea

disclaimer: Joel’s a friend of mine so I get to post whatever photo I want of him! ha!
Intro music by Fhernando
Welcome to the Musea Podcast!
This is episode #43 featuring commercial photography assistant Joel Hood. Joel is based out of Nashville, TN and has been assisting for about 10 years.
He’s assisted most of the main music and commercial photographers here in Nashville, as well as photographers from out of town. Some of the photographers he’s assisted include Mark Seliger, Mark Tucker, Kristin Barlowe and Russ Harrington.
Oh and we talk a little bit about video games at the end for you gamers out there!
I’d love it if you would rate and review this podcast on iTunes HERE!
Thanks so much for listening!
Blessings,
Michael Howard
Founder and CEO of Musea
The videos below are sets that Joel has worked on:
Today, I tweaked the pricing structure for the Seattle Gathering. There are now Early Bird Rates, Single Day Tickets and Full Rates.
The cut off for the Early Bird Rates is May 1st, 2013 and this affects Musea Store photographers as well.
All of the new prices are here: http://museagathering.com/information
**Early Bird Rate** - Ends May 1st, 2013
3 Day Ticket - $500 + Evenbrite Fee (For photographers within the US that use the Musea Store for their online proofing. You can sign up at mymusea.com)
**Single Day Tickets** - ON SALE NOW!
Single Day Ticket for Kirk Mastin - $250 + Eventbrite fee
Single Day Ticket for Ryan Muirhead - $250 + Eventbrite fee
Single Day Ticket for Cole and Jakob from Nordica Photography - $250 + Eventbrite fee
**Full Rate Tickets** - Starts May 1st, 2013
It’s not a question of which one are you, as we are all both, and we need to be both. You can’t make anything if you aren’t consuming anything. The process of making something is to combine already existing objects or ideas in an interesting way. We are all consumers, and we are all makers to one degree or another.
The real question is what are you consuming?
Does reading that book, listening to that album or watching that movie act as fuel for your creations? Are you intentional in allowing yourself to absorb information that you will be able to use to improve whatever it is you enjoy making?
On the other side, do you often consume things that do not spur you forward, but instead the momentum stops with you? When you watch that TV show, does it help you make a better life, better world, better art?
The information we consume is much like the food we put into our bodies. It’s fun to consume candy and high-calorie foods, but they do nothing to make our bodies better. Instead, they actually slow us down and make us weaker. These foods are full of empty calories. They are void of nutrition, but if we eat foods full of vitamins and nutrients, then our bodies gain more energy, more health and more stamina. We feel better and in turn; we are more active, we make better decisions and live a happier life.
It’s the same with information. What we consume informs what create. If you are consuming shallow music, shallow TV shows and shallow books, then guess what you’ll produce? Superficial work.
Our world is so full of information it is literally impossible to take it all in. We don’t have enough time, so we have to choose what we put into our minds. If you want to be a better artist, then do an inventory of what you are putting into your brain. Ask yourself if it helps you make better art.
Ideally, after you consume a new book, a movie or whatever it is, you should feel like you expanded your capacity for creation. Consuming someone else’s creation should give you momentum for your own creations. Watching a great play should inspire you to go make something awesome as well. If the creative momentum isn’t passed onto you, if it stops with you, then you don’t need to let that into your head.
The creations of others are the fuel for what you make. If you are in a rut or are unhappy with your work, try changing what you are putting into your thoughts. Read something you wouldn’t normally read, watch a movie you think you’ll hate and listen to the opposite of your worldview. Too often we only want to ingest information that backs up our current beliefs and knowledge, but that leads to repetitive creations. It’s like only painting with shades of blue. It’s interesting for a time, but after a while, it loses its charm. Be open to everything that interests you and even what doesn’t interest you initially.
Great artists have a never ending curiosity.
The most creative works are ones that take two or more ideas that seem to be unrelated, yet they are in harmony with each other within a given configuration. Orange and purple don’t always work together, but they can. Interesting combinations make for creative work that we are all attracted to, but you can’t make interesting combinations if you don’t know interesting things. Increase the size of the palette you are working from, while at the same time make your palette richer and more diverse.
In a nutshell: Crap in = Crap out