Inspiration and Being a Creative

I've been thinking of making this post for a while now but just haven't gotten around to it. I think inspiration/emotion is the greatest fuel for a creative individual and not necessarily "photographically" inspirational stuff either. While I am a photographer and love to see a moving, emotional, or powerful image, what really is intriguing to me is what caused that photographer to take the image. What types of thought processes do creative individuals take in order to arrive at the image, product, or design they land on? What is the (me included) motivation to get out a make/do something creative?

On a daily basis I flood myself with things that inspire me to be creative and push myself. Whether that is reading the latest blog post from Seth Godin, watching Chase Jarvis on set or giving a talk about being a creative, or browsing work by my favorite artists (painters, musicians, photograhers etc...) In a world where everything has an influence on you and your art, what are you doing to feed this?

There are may different methods of which you can accumulate or gather inspirational media. From clipping magazine pages and storing them in binders (You can see HERE what Bryan of A Bryan Photo does, and you should also check out the photographers he lists at the bottom of the post), to cutting and posting on an inspiration wall or "Vision Board" (Nick Onken does this, check it his post about it HERE), or you can do something similar to what I do, which is use a program called Evernote. I devour magazines and print images as well, however spending so much time online and with the over abundance of really amazing work out there I find this to be a great solution. Evernote allows me to clip and store or simply save URLS to work that I find inspirational while also allowing me to leave specific notes about that link.

Anway, long story short, as a creative you should always be striving to improve on your art. Find things that motivate, drive, and inspire you. Like I mentioned earlier, that doesn't necessarily have to be related to your specific niche. Stay inspired and never settle for ordinary.

The images below are just an example of how I use Evernote to clip and store inspirational media.