You've consumed enough. It's time to create

this video's come about following a DM I got an Instagram asking for a bit of advice about photography and basically what they said in that DM is I become obsessed with the learning side of things from YouTube videos that I've consumed so much information that I can't seem to go out and take photos without overthinking everything and that got me thinking because that was me that was me 12 years ago that was me S years ago that was me two years ago eventually I just got to the point where I had to stop and ask

myself why am I doing this and that brings us to this video over consumption isn't a new thing when I started photography I had stacks of books and magazines I love to work my way through every single day in 2025 watching endless tutorials Gear reviews and following our favorite creators on social media makes overc consumption a really easy trap to fall into feeling procrastination rather than creativity you can easily convince ourselves that we're EXP our knowledge learning new techniques and getting ourselves ready to make the leap into being a full-blown creative wizard but we're lying

to ourselves it's all and for a long time I didn't have a detector I just carried on in the blind belief that this is what being a photographer is but what it really is is our way of dealing with the fear that we don't think we're good enough consumption creates this false sense of productivity without us having to deal with the fact that maybe just maybe we're a little bit scared you keep learning and you think you keep getting better but you don't you just know more but change doesn't always equal change I've worked as

a photographer and filmmaker now for over a decade so I've always been creative but that wasn't really the issue the issue was that it was always creativity for someone else in the spaces in between my work I continued those consumption binges to feel like I was being productive in my own personal creativity but that consumption didn't provide me with any lasting value and that's where my personal sense of fulfillment and purpose really comes from I loved working with Nigro Danson and whilst we made some awesome stuff together it never quite scratched the itch that was

my personal desire to make something of my own something with the potential to be helpful to many I guess working with others just felt like going through emotions a bit and I knew something had to change I wasn't dissatisfied with what I was doing and I'm incredibly proud of some of the stuff we made my issue was with consumption over creation and crucially my lack of action fog's going now which is a shame consumption left me feeling satisfied but I only ever temporarily there was no personal growth or fulfillment in there and that's what I

was after I knew that creating could give a more lasting impact these days I do have a detector so I'm not going to lie to you and say this is easy because it's really not easy but it is possible and once you start down that path of consistent creativity it is better than you could imagine it to be turns out the fog's just moved up a bit so there's still a little bit hanging around here really annoying thing about this scene is these posts they go straight through where this tree falling which is a real

shame because I mean that's a lot photoshock I'm not sure there's quite a lot to take out so I've got closer to simplify the scene so I'm actually taking a shot from about here and I think that's really nice I'll show you that now creativity only ever comes from doing not from learning I often come back to the concept that action leads to motivation and not the other way around when we create we look to improve and then when we improve we create again and that cycle is so much more productive than the consumption one

so we need some steps to help us break our consumption habits and these are some things that have worked for me firstly set clear goals around your consumption and maybe set time limits and block off certain times for it so that your consumption is more intentional rather than just mindly falling back into it in quieter moments of the day secondly curate your feeds and only follow people that are actually providing you value and inspire you so hit subscribe below I guess ask yourself why you're doing it is this helpful or is this being productive every

single app on my phone where I use it for consumption is in a folder titled is this productive so automatically triggers my mind to think am I doing this for the right reasons and finally the nuclear option is just delete all the apps from your phone doesn't have to be forever but just until you get on top of your consumption habits but when breaking or changing a habit we need to replace it with something else and that's something else is creativity I'm going to talk about how to switch into a creating first mindset shortly before

I carry on if you enjoy this kind of stuff and you want to learn more from me you can sign up to my Weekly Newsletter in the link below fog's lifted to uh quite an annoying height now so I'm not sure how much photography is left I'm also aware that my backpack does keep appearing and reappearing whenever I've fallen into a pattern of consuming over creating it's generally because I felt a bit about myself now I have no idea what the roots of your consumption habits are but maybe if I talk about m it might

help you to trace yours back and I find that tracing things back often helps us to understand them and therefore deal with them a bit easier I had pretty low confidence in my abilities as a creative for a long time and I'd often find that the amount of learning I was doing was in direct correlation to how bad I was feeling about myself I learned an awful lot and it's probably been helpful to me over the years but it never helped me grow it took me a while but last year I took a deep dive

into why I had such low confidence in my creative abilities and it turned out that despite a really strong desire to be a photographer and a filmmaker I had this belief that it wasn't a proper job to the extent where when people asked me what I did I'd always finish that sentence with but it's not a proper job and I wored out where that came from and that came from some very poor career guidance when I was a teenager and I've not heard those words uttered for well over 20 years yet that's something that's stayed

with me and it's stayed with me as a belief and I've almost just always been waiting for myself to fail at this and if that's how I feel about it then why would I dive head first in putting all my efforts into making it a success that might not make sense because I had these two parts of me that were pulling at each other one saying this isn't going to work out you're going to end up doing something else and this other one that had this deep desire and belief to make it success and that's

what's caused me all this Strife I suppose over the last decade when it comes to my work just knowing and understanding that though gave me the power to change that belief and here I am now a year later in a completely different frame of mind and I've never been as creatively fulfilled or grateful for what I'm doing as I am now despite my fairly quick turnaround it can take a long time for this to happen changing habits and changing in beliefs takes a lot of work and I feel like I was banging on the door

of change for so many years before it finally opened now I'm not suggesting people just stock consuming because that's not going to happen and it would also highly impact my millions of dollars of AD Revenue but what we can look to do is aim for a bit more balance and what I've done over the last 12 months is aim for a create first mentality and I'll consume with a lot more intention and it's often when I try to learn something or improve something and then once I've improved or learned the thing I try and Implement

that into my creativity rather than going on a consumption binge and putting more information into my already overflowing brain something I have tried to do is limit my consumption using screen time and time limits for apps but because I'm more of an All or Nothing kind of guy I found I turned them off within well just days of turning them on now before we come on to the end boss of this game which is actually making something I want to address the less and helpful excuses our brains come up with the first one being not

enough time I'm going to Hazard a guess that you probably do have some time and it's just allocated properly I don't know everyone's individual situation but this is an excuse I used all the time when I looked at the amount of time I was sat consuming it didn't stack up what I did was all sorts of things and I handily spoke about them in this video about thinking you've not got enough time which is linked there the second famous excuse is I need better gear and this can be filed under not believing you're good enough

yet I get it sometimes we do need new gear but I think a lot of the time our want for New Gear is directly tied to our confidence in our own skills as photographers filmmakers creativ so use what you've got because no matter what you are using I've got absolutely no doubt in my mind that incredible things can be created with it the third one my personal favorite is I'm not ready yet no you're not and do you know what you'll never be ready so stop thinking that and get to work the photo I took

at the start of that segment was just for show for the video it's actually a terrible picture I think we can probably fire this one under these better conditions no know what you're thinking you like what I've said you feel inspired to get up and start creating something which is absolutely amazing brilliant but I also know that when you finish watching this video you are probably going to watch another video do not do that unless it's one of mine of course whatever you you do when this video finishes leave a comment below saying what you're

going to do because accountability works but when you finish this video close your laptop turn off your phone and do something and if you're wondering what should I do try one of these things set yourself a challenge or a project it could be a daily photo or a weekly photo it could be a Project based on a specific area or around a single scene as an example I've started shooting a local bridge and plan to take the same shop in all sorts of different conditions across the a the great example of this is Ryan Harris

who's created an unbelievable body of work just photographing a single Tree near to where he lives it's located on a work route of mine and I spent two years driving past not taking a single photograph it's a thing of beauty when you can see something with your own eyes and not feel compelled to take a photograph you can enjoy that one day I did decide to stock see a huge Sunset Sky roaring behind the tree and I had the camera in the car and I stopped I Leed it to to the field and took some

photographs and I'm so glad I did because that has started a three-year long project and ongoing project Which documents the changing skies and weather systems over a single subject maybe you could restrict your gear and see where that leads and restricting things like that often leads to Greater creativity and this is a lot easier if you always have a camera on you so normalize having an everyday camera batch create I've been doing this as part of my daily reals project I don't want to make a real every single day so I'll batch it up and

make five six seven at a time and do that once maybe twice a week this can be done for anything like editing blogging making videos for YouTube there's so many things that can be batched that we don't necessarily think about have deadlines for yourself since I set myself the target of releasing a YouTube video every week and in an Instagram reel every day I don't think about whether to create or not now it takes away that choice and I just do it without that friction of should I do this today that is action leads to

motivation in action also be accountable I just said to the world that I'll put a YouTube video out every week this year and I'll put out 365 Instagram reals this year I've now got to save myself from that public humiliation by actually doing it make it easy that's the key to creating consistently just make it as easy as possible if it's hard it's not something you're going to want to do so at some point you're going to stop doing it I'm not saying to everyone that you've got to create a YouTube video every week or

an Instagram re every day because that's just not realistic try and use positive feedback loops to your advantage if something feels good or goes well do more of it and ride that creative wave you'll keep making improvements getting better and that creative streak will take you on quite a journey it can open doors and create opportunities for you that you have no idea exist I've got contacts now all over the world and it is all through doing this death job Rick of 10 years ago had no idea this was possible back to my time working

with igel I still work with igel now but I prioritize my own stuff rather than his and he's fine with that in fact that's what he told me to do he's been telling me to do this for years but because I'd not dealt with the factors behind my rampant consumption I wasn't in a place where I could actually do it he's been a constant supporter of what I do a big believer in in what I can do and a huge inspiration of letting go of all this that I've just talked about so I just wanted

to give him a huge thank you if you've got no idea who I'm talking about I've linked to his channel below and the series that we filmed together in luskintyre which is by far and way some of the best stuff that both of us together as a team have done so maybe you don't have to give up whatever it is you're doing to chase this creative dream you just have to start and then see where that goes before we go drop a comment below and let me know what you're going to do when you finish

watching this it could be blocking out time in your calendar for a shoot it could be planning a challenge or a project but just remember that progress and the process is more important than perfectionism so go out there and do something we'll start that again