Very interesting subject. One of the best ever IMO. :thumbup:
All we can do is share experiences and relate certain observations gained during the process of growth. Mine come from different creative disciplines ... which sometimes helps in figuring out growth in photography. The first step is to question yourself ... which you are doing.
For much of my career I was an Executive Creative Director working for one of the largest Ad agencies in the world, Young & Rubicam. At times I was managing over 100 creative people ... not just administratively, but creatively. My job was to help them to keep moving forward and to deepen their talent. Here are a few morsels I picked up while doing that:
Expand beyond yourself. Most people that are questioning themselves look inward. It's very easy to become isolated and complacent with the status quo. Try looking outward. There is a book called "Geniuses Together" ... where it points out that almost all great leaps forward in most any discipline were fueled by outer contact with like minded people, or more importantly more talented and accomplished people. Ad agencies are teeming with talented people, and also afford each creative person contact with some of the best photographers, cinematographers and graphic people in the world. I told my people to pay attention to these people and pick their brains.
To push my photography, I made contact with a very successful and accomplished photographer in NYC who mentored me. Dinner conversations with him were a tonic that fueled creative growth because he thought completely differently than I did. He is still pushing me to this day.
It is VERY important to pick who to associate with very carefully. Teaming up with people like you will be fun, but won't necessarily provide the goose you may need to move forward. Look to new places and faces.
Stop looking behind you. It was not uncommon for now very famous fine art painters to destroy their past work so it would stop infecting their chance at the future. Stop pining for the "good old days" and set your attention on what's to come, not what was. What "was" is still being evaluated with old creative standards ... you need new ones.
Provide yourself with a new purpose. Part of re-inventing anything is for it to have a purpose beyond your own self satisfaction. As Picasso said, "a painting kept in the closet, might as well be kept in the head". Picasso's work helped redefine how many other visual disciplines actually thought about time and space. He was still moving forward right until he dropped dead at 90.
This of course wasn't a problem with advertising since the purpose is obvious. Strange as it may seem, wedding photography did that for me. It was a completely different kind of photography to me ... but one with a purpose. My challenge then was to do it differently than from anything I had done before ... which meant forget what I had done before.
Try teaching or mentoring someone else. Nothing moves you out of studying your own belly button faster than teaching someone else. Take a raw talent under your wing, it's an elixir! One-on-one not over the internet. I have wedding assistants that have taught me more fresh thinking than you can imagine. Now I know why my mentors put up with me .... there was something in for them too!
Embrace technology, then ignore it. This may seem strange coming from a gear whore like me, but I actually do ignore all the differences and embrace the similarities of technology. They are all just boxes with media in them and some lens on front. They all work the same way. Some allow more or less of this or that, but are essentially the same. It usually only takes about 10 minutes to figure it out and get shooting. All the rest of the minutia is a huge distraction from getting on with the task of creative expression. People tend to hide in technology to avoid really moving forward on a personal level.
I get reminded of this almost daily by my pal Irakly Shandize, who is years behind in spending $$$$ on technology and light years ahead in creativity ... which he teaches to great effect with photographers that are stumped about their personal growth .
-Marc