Stuck. That’s how I feel most days as a creative. Moving from 0-1 can be hard and trusting yourself to fuck up again and again to one day not fuck up can be a hard thing to get good at.

Sometimes in creation I find my thinking the final product has to be perfect. Perfection or discuss seems to be the far lining sides. Even though grey is happening continuously we tend to ignore it as a fluke or mistake. Life is lived in the grey with pulling extremes that we let define who we are. Yet, tending to ignore what we don’t want to define us.

Technology has helped us take a step forward in masking our mistakes and projecting who we are. Then, taking us back another step by blistering our sensory awareness towards the art that others and we create. False faces held up by the best moments we decide to capture and share.

Creation and doing are such simple concepts yet ones much easier to type in a word document from a coffee shop in the Pearl of Portland then getting up and executing. Challenging yourself is the best push to get to that flow state we all look for. Setting goals or gaining a new perspective by tying one hand behind your back is the best way to get “unblocked.”

This process is a hard one, which is why I’m laying my experience out in front of you. Hoping that these words and photographs inspire one of you to get up and create average work with intention of something greater. Say that one in every twenty photographs you take is great and the rest are just terrible. If you take 100 photographs then you landed five great photographs in the bag. Over time you’ll learn what you like and don’t like. Different experiences, equipment and people will shape your opinions and style. This approach is playing the long game and a move to make you better overtime and experience.

“But what am I going to post tonight on Instagram,” you say. Use the tool that we all have the same amount of, time. Get out there now and take steps to get you 0-1. One step at a time, one photograph a time, one project at a time.

I’m taking the long way there. Taking all the side routes and turnouts to really dig into the details to understand the why. It keeps one hand tied behind my back and reminds me how important one photograph is.

Over a two week period this summer I used the basic of the basic to grab a snap shot into my life and focus on challenging myself to capture better. Picked up two disposable cameras from the local drug store and snapped away. These photographs are from those two rolls of film. Some of these photos are from the best days of my life climbing on the Oregon coast off Highway 101. Some are from rainy days lost in forest in the Pacific North West. All of them are printed. Imagine that. Holding something you’ve created.

- Bric Bain