Six Sites To Boost Creativity

Self assignments are the gift you give yourself. If it feels too much like work, well, um, it is. How can you expect to get paid for being creative by just sitting there? The trick to being successful in anything is to ‘just do it!’ Nike really capitalized on this sentiment, in their very successful media campaign and it’s easy to see why.

Actions beget more actions and by setting your sites on producing better work, the results will begin to speak for themselves. My strategy for churning up creativity is to look at what’s being produced today. Never has this been easier… no purchase required. Check out these best sites to fan creative fires and get you excited about your craft:

Behance – is a treasure trove of top notch works being done in various creative fields including illustration, industrial design, motion graphics, photography, flash animation, cartooning, advertising, film, fashion styling, architecture, storyboarding, textile design and many more. Searchable by field and location Behance compels the muse in you.  Curated galleries as well as ‘Served Sites,’ hold industry specific collections. Exploring all the genres on Behance is recommended to see winning images used in advertising, fashion and photojournalism works. Users can sign on to upload works and as the portfolio grows, Pro accounts are available for more features. As a member commenting on works is welcome and this helps to build a social media network among the best professionals in their respective fields.

500px is a photographer’s candy shop.The images on this site are exceptionally outstanding. The website design is done in a grid fashion allowing immediate views of the latest uploads and membership is free for basic accounts.

CNN Photos.blog and Lens.blogs.NYTimes are two sites worth looking at everyday. These images are hard to look at sometimes because they’re not pretty pictures. The role of documentary photography informs the viewer of ugly truths, often of war, disease and catastrophic events, but when done well convey a universal truth – all human beings hurt the same way. For those interested in reportage, these sites are necessary not only for their graphic content, but for the information they convey.

Two invaluable sites for tutorials and industry news are PetaPixel and FStoppers. Equipment reviews, and emerging talents are shown in blog format and gives reasons to think about the photographic process and purpose. Enjoy exploring!