I've been a digital producer for a long time. Nearly two decades now. And while I consider myself to have been successful in what I do and diverse in my portfolio of photography, design, audio, video and now work around mental health empowerment with my podcast DOPEamine, I've mostly come to realize that my career has been built on a few main ideas.
Consistent work, "taste" and "the art of seeing".
I think most artists will agree with this to some degree or another. Consistent work as a concept speaks for itself but I'll talk about it anyway because that's a thing I do.
Notice that I didn't mention anything about quality first because quality doesn't come first, no matter what angle you approach it from. Yes, yes, you've gotta make "good" work but that doesn't come out of nowhere.
I don't know too many children that pick up crayons and develop masterpieces on the first day (despite what mom or the fridge says). But does that stop them from scribbling something, calling it "Herbie" and being in love with it and demanding it be put on display? They keep creating and to me, that's all an artist is, someone who didn't stop creating. Consistent work is about being okay with the result not matching up with what you want or your sense of taste. You either do it and sometimes don't like but keep going anyway or you do it, don't like it and stop wholesale to become an accountant (no shade on being an accountant but it's not what I'd want to be is all I'm saying).
But then there's also that third person. You know, the one who doesn't take criticism well or at all and doesn't do "good" work by anyone's standard yet doesn't stop bragging about how great they're work is and people just "don't get it" and convinces themselves that it's the greatest thing since the invention of the meatball (sorry, this is not a vegan or gluten free article).
The difference between them and someone who makes work consistently is the evolution of taste amidst that process. I think anyone is capable of making space for someone who is growing and in-process but someone who never learns can give off the vibe that they're afraid to put their ego on the line or its obvious that they're not being exposed to enough new ideas.
Taste comes in as the pathway to originality. Taste being a collection of inspirations, connections, and experiences that have resonated with boundaries being formed around what no longer inspires, resonates or connects. Sometimes that's personal and other times that's cultural. Even artists who go against the grain are operating from a perspective of taste. Knowing what the rules are in order to break them.
The challenge with taste is the dynamic and subjective nature of the content of taste. Taste being the development of the tuning fork not what's it tuned to. Taste is adaptable and changing, whereas a medium or message can become stale, static, and irrelevant.
Another way to look at it is that we all start by copying something we like as an expression of our taste. Little kids draw unicorns because they're rad and it's what they've been exposed to on Lisa Frank binders or cartoons. I like that and I wanna make that. But then taste evolves as you add more elements into the stew. You give the unicorn a helmet and a jetpack but it roars like a lion and speaks German. Then you grow up and start a brewing company because your dad did it and now you want to so The German Unicorn is born. After some time you want to start a non-profit for people with ADHD because that's been a part of your story too, so you start The German Unicorn Jetpack Crew and ADHD foundation helping kids cope with their challenges.
While that's a ridiculous example, I think you see what I mean. It doesn't have to be linked to business or that kind of timetable or even linked to your past. It's simply an expression of what you love combined into a skillful creation meant to express who you are or make a connection. It becomes something original. Years or refining taste through trial and error, eventually landing on creating damn good work.
While the unicorn and brewing story is made up, the ADHD part is not. For me, ADHD is a big part of my story and has inspired me to create DOPEamine as a means to express my challenges with ADHD, cyclothymia and being a highly sensitive person. I use my digital production skills to create podcasts and YouTube videos with combined visual elements from astronomy, video games and elements of Philly culture, where I grew up.
None of that could've happened had I not opened myself up to seeing and experiencing. Life is all around you, so make sure to look up from time to time. You never know what you'll see.
What I love about the art of seeing is that it's a universal human experience. Even if you've never picked up a paint brush you can experience art at every turn if you listen to what activates a sense of joy for you. You can see reality as a limited experience or you can see it as an opportunity to take in everything around you that you have the opportunity to perceive.
The way the light hits a building, how the colors change in the sky, the patterns in a brick wall, or the shadows being created from a crowd of people, the reflections on a wet street, the way the trees line up, how the snow highlights tree branches, or amazement at the construction of nearly any building.
While consistent work and taste are important, perspective is what I value most. No one sees what I see the way I see it. No one sees what you see the way you see it.
I may be standing in a spot looking in a direction at a time of day not commonly experienced, and especially not captured. I see it as my job to look for and capture those moments with considerations of my taste in how to line up the shot and taking lots of good photos.
What I ultimately hope to encourage with my work is that you look for similar moments yourself, to even see that the perspective is possible then when you're standing in line, being impatient, stuck in traffic or stuck somewhere you can find beauty in the difficult situation.
You probably have a smartphone. Take photos of what you notice. Appreciate the nuances of the world around you, develop your taste and do it often. Experience other people's work, then go see more work, then develop a skill and put those inspirations into the work, then attach all of that to something important. All you have to do to start is notice things.
Thanks!
Christian Rivera | Digital Producer
—
http://www.cnote.media
http://www.dopeamine.life