Embrace Your Limitations

New Orleans, Dec 2016. Shot with available light, through a window, during a rain delay.

Limited time? Limited budget? Production, and life, can seem like a never ending list of limitations. It’s easy to think of these as problems, but the truth is, you’d be better served to think of limitations as guideposts, leading you towards a more unique and exciting creative result.

The very best creative is born out of problem solving.

If Shakespeare wasn’t writing in Iambic Pentameter, he never would have had to come up with lines like “But Soft, what light through yonder window breaks.” He could have just said, “It’s nice how the light comes in.” Was having to write in verse a problem for him? Of course not, it was an inspiration to be embraced!

Most creatives dismiss practical limitations as someone else’s problem, until it’s too late. And we’ve seen their ideas get thrown out or bent out of shape or mangled by the process time and time again. The truth is, it’s shouldn’t be one or the other. The creative and the practical need to dovetail.  They need to inspire each other. If you disregard the size and shape of the engine of a car in favor of the curves and color of the body, you're not going to end up a very good car.  And probably all your elegant curves are going to get thrown out to make the engine fit. Creativity, in the real world, works the same way.

Don’t hope for zero limitations, you’ll be hoping forever, and if you get it, the result will probably be boring. Your secret weapon is making the creative and the production side work in unison.  When you find your brilliant idea headed towards the chopping block of real world limitations, ask yourself, how can I serve both masters. The result will be a more unique and original idea than you ever could have come up with without your inspiring limitations.