"Duuuuude your photos are insane! How do you come up with ideas like that? Are you on drugs or something?"
Today's Topic...
Creative Brainstorming
No. I'm not on drugs or something. I don't do drugs. Sure I have a beer on occasion and I'm by no means straight edge, but I don't snort and 8 ball and then sit down to edit. I use this little guy.
This is my Moleskine notebook. One of about 4 that I have sitting in my car, by my bedside, in the living room and on my desk. I try to always have one within arms reach because if you think you can remember that crazy idea you had for a photo, if you're like me you can't and it will be gone in 10 minutes. Even just jotting down a couple words about an idea will help you remember it. If I don't have one near me, I'll twitter a couple words to remind myself later, or send myself a text message. So that's how I remember the weird stuff my brain throws at me. Coming up with the weird stuff is a whole different thing. As you know I went to school for photography, but before that I had a stint in graphic design. At Montana State one thing they love in the graphic design department are brainstorm maps. You know, those things where you write down one word in the middle and spiderweb other ideas off of it. Like Cheese leads to chevre, chevre leads to goats, goats leads to herd, and all of a sudden I'm pitching a shoot for a band goat tying a heard of goats at a rodeo... I like that, I'll have to write it down. Sitting down to hash out ideas in this way trains you to think bigger. So never hesitate to come up with the strangest ideas you can. Then you always have a long list of ideas to pitch when a band hates the standard "flying V" band photo.
I'm also very blessed to have a network of friends in the film industry, who are all brilliant and hilarious. Sitting around on a Saturday night with a few beers leads to many many ridiculous ideas for all of our projects. Some are tangible, some we put on our "When I'm so famous I can demand ANYTHING" list for the future. Such as how one day I want to photograph a band in front of a Rube Goldberg machine that blows confetti at them. Think of the most obscure ridiculous ideas that you can, then scale them back to reality. My absolute favorite thing about shooting bands is that you don't have to have an answer to "why?" Fine art always needs a reason, but you can have a band jumping out of a skyscraper for the hell of it and no one will question it, just make the image look good.
Sorry this entry is a bit small, but I'm off to a Hollywood prop company to pick up a fake octopus. Dream big!
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