Find your way back to CREATIVITY - Reconnect with your inner child

Are you lost in your search for creativity? Every artist might face this phase where he/she feels stuck, whether you are a wedding photographer, or even travel the world as a destination wedding photographer, whether you are a painter, a singer, a writer... I bet we all have felt that at some point. At least, I have. Until that day, when my sister called me as she needed me to babysit my nephew...

Spending time with my 3 year-old nephew has opened my eyes on how we think about creativity. I realized that as adults, we overthink creativity, we think that it’s something we need to find outside, draw inspiration from God knows what source … Pinterest? Instagram? Fellow artists ? (yes, I do all of these three I have to admit) but we forget that creativity comes from the inside FIRST. Watching my nephew create his own world for a whole day made me realized that every one of us used to be THAT creative, we could see a sword in a wooden stick, we could see a castle out of a couch and a pile of pillows, we could talk to anyone anytime, we never felt judged for not being creative enough or not doing it right… But growing up, we built walls with social pressure, fears...and we stopped exploring.

That’s it.

We  JUST. STOPPED. EXPLORING.

Because we are driven by the pressure of creating. We think we need to create, we must come up with something others will like…

Remember when we ALL used to be like this creative building our own reality:

Best of Action Movie Kid's adventures Thanks to Hashi and his son for these great videos. You can find the original channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2hAbftpVjHtFrDOpEM90aA http://www.kainio.com

I gave my nephew an old Holga plastic camera for him to play with. Oh boy, I can’t even describe the joy and light in his eyes! He grabbed the camera and snapped the hell out of it, he snapped everything that caught his attention. He was so happy about it. Did he care that there was no film roll inside? NO. Did he care what people around him would think ? NO. Did he felt pressure to come up with amazing pictures? NO. Although I’m sure in his mind, he did created amazing pictures! 

I asked myself when was the last time I felt so much joy and excitement… 
If only we could reconnect with our inner child, if only we could reconnect with that joy, that part of us that doesn’t care what others think. If only we let ourselves to just be. If only we could let the social pressure go. The pressure we create ourselves in our own mind about : the NEED to create to please others (aka get praise, get new clients, get likes, get shares and comments, etc)

STOP PUTTING PRESSURE ON YOURSELF to create AMAZING things. A lifetime of creativity will probably bring out only a few chefs-d'oeuvre and THAT IS OKAY. Let me ask you: Who's your all-time favorite artist? Can you name some of his/her major chefs-d'oeuvre? How long is your list ? I bet it has less than 10 items. I remember reading the story of John Keats, one of the greatest English poets. He lived his whole life thinking his work was mediocre, he even wrote himself : “I could have been one of the greats if only I had enough time”. Isn't it sad ? So don't waste your time trying to create the perfect thing. JUST CREATE.

One effective way I found to reconnect with our inner creativity is to break the daily routine. Remember the very first time you brushed your teeth, on your own? Weren’t you the most excited kid the the WHOLE WORLD ?! Of course you were. Were you that excited about brushing your teeth this morning ? I guess not. But that’s because it became a must-do, a daily thing we need to do for a specific goal : get our teeth clean. 
Why not try doing something without a goal? Trying just for the sake of EXPLORING. EXPERIMENTING. Because the joy we will feel doing this, will trigger a new way of feeling, seeing, and then CREATING differently. 

“I find as my imagination strengthens, I live not in one world but a thousand” - John Keats

We can just start by doing ONE thing differently everyday. Take a different route to go to work, change the order of our daily routine, eat something we’ve never tried, but above all, just create without any goals in mind : pick up your guitar, your pen, your brush, your scissors, your camera, whatever is your favorite tool of creation and just do it. CREATE.

"All children are artists, the problem is how to keep being one ?" - Picasso

Here are some phone snaps of my day of adventure with Leo :

Leo on top of a Skyscraper

Saving the world like Spiderman

Leo being a photoreporter

Leo catching life in motion

Leo creating magic on the train

Leo checking his shots on his backless camera

Share with me your thoughts about creativity and your experiences on reconnecting with you inner child. I'd love to hear about it and get inspired ! Meanwhile, register below if you want to receive your daily dose of inspiration.

With love and gratitude,

Celine xx

Stop living for others, start creating for yourself

Living in a world where we're surrounded with media especially social media, we often find ourselves drowning in information overload. Whether we are wedding photographers or have a creative job - or any job actually - we tend to compare our talent and creativity with whatever we see all day long on our screens. The problem is that it can trigger some depreciating feelings about ourselves because it looks like everyone else is coming up with amazing ideas, everyone else is shooting amazing weddings, everyone else is having a better life than me ... Truth is we know that social media are a lot about showcasing a certain reality, the best version of something, or even staging reality sometimes (I loved these two things : here and here) and this can condition our subconscious in believing that our life pretty much sucks. I've been there, trust me, I know how it feels. But I also started to question this statement and quickly realized that it's all about our perception. Perception about own self, about our self-value, about our own creativity... The other day I read that quote, and it made all the difference :

"Stop hating yourself for everything you're not; start loving yourself for everything you are"

How simple yet powerful statement that is! I believe that our depreciating feelings towards our work come from not loving ourselves enough - not in a selfish way but in a benevolent way - So I started to be more patient and kind with myself. After all, why striving to be patient and kind with people if I can't even be this way with myself ?! And also, I started to list down in my head everything I've already achieved/created and that I'm really proud of. I invite you to do the same, you'll soon realize that you've achieved much more than you think and it will even boost you to push yourself further, get out of your comfort zone and be even more creative and inspired. 

That's what happened with this editorial shoot. I had this idea for a long time running in my head but it never was the right time, I wasn't ready, I didn't have a stylist and other vendors on board, blablablah... and then suddenly during Chinese New Year, it all made sense. All of these excuses didn't matter. All I wanted was to reconnect with my Chinese roots, I wanted to mix modernity and traditions and above all, I wanted to get out of my comfort zone by shooting in conditions I seldom use : indoors, dark backdrop, strong and rich colors and contrast. And the other important thing :  I wanted to create something beautiful for myself, with nothing at stake, no expectations other than exploring, experimenting and see what comes out.  I created the traditional Chinese headdress you see on the photos, by myself and can't tell you how amazing it felt to reconnect with the fun of creating stuff with my own hands, just like a child's excitement with the first Lego castle he builds.

I didn't shoot because I was paid to do so, I didn't shoot because I wanted to be published, I didn't shoot because I wanted likes or approval or praise from anyone. I shot because it meant something to me. 

And what came out was beyond what I could have wished for but most of all, it made me proud of my work and suddenly, the grass wasn't greener on other side. Sun was shining bright again inside of me and grass was pretty fresh and green on my mind's lawn!

And so, I'll just end this rabbiting with this quote from one of my favorite poets :

"Stop acting so small, you are the universe in ecstatic motion" - Rumi

Here are the photos of the shoot :

Gorgeous rings by Myrtille Beck  |  Earrings by La Chambre Blanche     | Massaï Bangles by Sylvia Toledano from Art & Facts, other bangles : vintage

Vintage furniture from La Bohême Déco

Floral arrangement by Roses by Claire  

Headdress and overall styling by myself