🔎 The Weekly Scroll: What are your creative barriers?

Removing my phone as a creative crutch

Hey y’all,

I took film and photography classes at university and hated almost every minute of the process. Each new professor brought with them only complications to my safe graduation and didn’t necessarily inspire a love of participating in the making of a piece of art. In the midst of all that, I fell in love with the end product but not the making of it.

But I reached the limits of consumption without creation pretty quickly. My work increasingly expanded to include content creation, and so grew the need to make my content look better. As I started studying again and realized I knew the theory, I found that my practice was very (very) rusty.

And it wasn’t helping that I was just using my phone.

I went back and forth a lot. My phone was enough. My phone wasn’t enough. I wanted to upgrade my gear but couldn’t justify it.

The lack of friction had turned my phone into a creative crutch. Sure, I could have learned the technicalities using the tools I already had. But I wasn’t building knowledge about the filmmaking process. I wasn’t dealing with the challenges that would make me stronger at my work.

That is, until last summer, when a friend put his camera in my hand while we were on vacation. I was heading out on a walk, and he told me to take pictures. So I did — for an hour, badly, with no idea what I was doing.

There were a lot of thumbs-in-frame, off-center images and overexposed shots. But it was love at first shutter click. I sometimes feel uncomfortable using my phone to capture a moment, but a camera in my hand made me leap over that and gain a new habit.

I bought that camera off him and took it on another trip, this time solo, with far more photo walks. That led me to buy one camera, and another and another, with accompanying gear, until I acquired a mini studio. And there’s still so much camera out there to marvel at.

I’m still learning — I call myself a “baby gearhead” because photographer or video creator don’t sit comfortably. And who knows, I might have reached this level of creativity if I stuck with my phone and made the most out of it.

But I do know I’ve never wanted to create more than I do now. The lack of gear was never really about the gear. It was more about permission. Owning a camera made me someone who’s “allowed” to take pictures. As silly as that makes me feel now on the other side, it forced a mindset shift that unlocked my craving to make stuff.

Your barrier likely isn’t gear. Modern phones are incredibly powerful, and what you have can do a lot. Whole movies get shot on them, and they’re easy to carry, so they lower the barrier to entry for anyone inclined to start making things. But if you observe yourself long enough (or maybe you already know), you might find out what’s stopping you, be it real or imagined.

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WHAT’S IN MY SCROLL?

As you can probably tell, I’m in my video era at the moment. So all my feeds feature lighting breakdowns, camera reviews, and editing tips.

I don’t have singular pieces of content to recommend, but rather a list of creators that always put something interesting in my feed.

1. Vanessa Lau

2. Jared Thomas Tapy

3. Ethan Uncurated

4. Valeriiatuu

And finally, I’m eagerly awaiting access to Instagram’s new Series feature and can’t wait to try it out. I’ve been loving seeing how Alyssa of @inspiredmediaco is using it to repackage existing content.

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That’s it from me.

Until next week,

Tami

Sr. Content Creator