Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Exercising my Creative Muscles

by Kelly



It's a slippery slope my friends.


I never intended to get sucked into Instagram stilllife hashtags.


At first I was just playing along with Kim Klassen and her #mystillsundaycompetition.  But then I started following other creative IG'ers.  And then I started checking out all the hashtags that they played along with.  And pretty soon....yep...you guessed it.  I fell down the rabbit hole.


For me it has nothing to do with keeping up with my IG friends or having my images picked out of the pool to be featured.  No, what I have come to love is the act of starting my day with something fun and creative.


The other thing that I enjoy is the tactile aspect to these kinds of still life shots.  I spend a lot of time behind a screen at work (and to some degree with my blogging/photography), so I particularly enjoy getting to inject a bit of craftiness into my days.


Even though I don't really consider myself to be a 'still life' photographer, playing along with these kinds of tags feels a bit like I'm exercising my creative muscles.  But in a fun way!  And numerous studies show that exercising creativity in one aspect can permeate into many other areas of your life. Plus, making time for play and fun has been shown to increase productivity and innovation.  It decreases stress and anxiety.  And it can even boost your mood and energy.


It's like Crossfit for Creativity!


Delaney Gates, a talented IG photographer whose creative work I just love, recently compiled a fairly comprehensive list of IG still life focused hashtags.  You can find that here.  A few of my favorites are:




Besides exercising my creative muscles, starting my day with these lovely little things just makes me so happy.  And more importantly, it reinforces my beliefs that there is always something to be grateful for and that there is beauty and joy to be found in our ordinary lives.

Thank you for letting me share it with you.

Love, Kelly

P.S. Don't forget that you can always play along with our own IG #focusingonlife tag!


6 comments:

AFishGirl said...

Anything that fuels the creative fire, I laughed at the Crossfit reference. #stretchingwithcameras

Renuko Style said...

Yup, fell down that rabbit hole too! No desire to get out, it's just too much fun!

Dotti said...

We're going to have to appoint you to be FOL's Director of Hashtags. There are some fun and beautiful hashtags on Instagram, these are but a few. Although I love looking through the beautiful work to be seen in the hashtag feeds, I've not felt drawn to the rabbit hole. I'll just enjoy it all vicariously through your great photos.

terriporter said...

There's nothing like shooting and more shooting to improve your photography and to flex those creative muscles! Love the CrossFit analogy! And you are so right that focusing on the little things makes us see the beauty around us and realize how grateful we are. Your photos are so lovely and enticing. I know I could so easily get sucked down the rabbit hole if I allowed myself to and I'm hoping that soon things will open up and I can have the creative time to do just that.

heyjudephotography said...

I love these photos, but I mostly love the fact that you are taking the time to shoot these photos! Don't you just love how being creative makes your brain think more and more creatively?!

Carol said...

So good for you, and great cross fit analogy -I agree. I miss doing my kitchen table series every morning.

Post a Comment

Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. If for any reason you are unable to leave a comment here on this post, please leave your comment on our Facebook page or in our Flickr discussion group. We love hearing from you!

 
© Focusing On Life