Input/Output

To my left sit 2 magazines. One W and one V (not Vogue but V Magazine).

Until earlier today, I didn't know V Magazine existed. I knew about W. I subscribe to neither at the moment.

I should be ashamed of myself. Actually I know so little when it comes to fashion, beauty, modeling, photography, retouching for that matter. Part of the problem is that I'm too busy creating work rather than reading about the work of others.

It's a double-edged sword. On one edge, I get to preserve my creativity, my identity, to create new work which would otherwise be spent looking at that of others. On the other edge, I don't get the same influences, I lose touch with the marketplace, I don't know what's "hot" right now, and I might become an "island".

So I took a 1.5 days to seek out some new inputs. Hence the 2 new magazines. I also met a few new photographers today. And yesterday I discovered that I get Fashion TV on Dish Network. I watched 2-3 hours of it yesterday whiles surfing the Internet ;)

The point of this post is that it's important to have both inputs and outputs and that there should be a balance between both so you can stay relevant but also keep producing new work. Try to keep your inputs useful, relevant, and noise-free (not garbage). Try to keep your outputs consistent because you can still grow and learn from your outputs too.