Make More. Make Better.

The Creator's Dilemma: Quantity vs. Quality

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Stop to Hear The Argument

There’s a quiet argument inside every creative. I felt immensely frustrated by this argument for a long time until I took the time to understand it. Those of us who engage with creativity—whether for fun or for money—are invited to live with this argument in our heads on a semi-permanent basis. The argument comes from two popular voices, equally loud, equally convincing and it’s up to us how to approach them:

• Voice 1: “Make a lot of art—life is short and staying visible matters.” (Quantity)
  Voice 2: “Focus deeply. Create something truly beautiful—it’s quality that builds your reputation.” (Quality)

So which voice wins the argument? Should we go out and create loads this month? Or slow down and polish two? I’ll walk through these two voices and what they tell me.

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Quantity Without Quality

In this stage, I’m making a lot of images, prints, songs, written pages, ideas, projects, experiments. I’m just cranking them out as much as possible. Without intentional quality, I appear to be dancing in place. I’m expending energy without building refinement.

This is an actual output graph I asked AI to generate from real data from my Lightroom catalog. (I finally found a respectable purpose for AI! ;-)). It shows what quantity without quality looks like for me: alive but chaotic. Some pieces shine. Most don't though—and the skill curve ebbs and flows but remain flat. This is where I’ve lived mostly as a photographer, as of late.

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Quality Without Quantity

Here’s the voice that tells me to slow down. Sounds good at first, but… I obsess, tweak, and release something new only when it’s “ready.” The graph barely moves and there are few repetitions, little growth. There’s little life or friction that is needed to build instinctual progress.

With too much focus on perfection and without frequent creative instances, I’m an old stalled car on the side of the road in the mud. I protect my ego so no one sees my flaws, but I sacrifice necessary evolution. This is where I’ve lived mostly as a musician, as of late.

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What’s Needed Are Both Voices.

Creative growth seems less like a decision tree moment and more like a bridge between volume and refinement. I walk the bridge by the act of creating itself, repeating that act, learning from it, and risking my vulnerability in releasing it. It’s called, The Sweet Spot.

This is the goal that I want to aim for in my creative life. Here’s where I create often and push each phase a little further. Here’s where I don’t wait for perfection, but I don’t settle when I know that piece will feel incomplete. This is where I’ve lived mostly as a writer, as of late, but would like to push myself in my photography. I used to dedicate myself solely to street photography. In the last few years, I’m playing a lot with other genres and I would like to apply a new cadence.

The result with my writing though, is that my work shows movement and energy. I find my voice in the volume of my achievements and I can feel proud for having built something that will last.

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The Practice

Now here’s the thing: My challenge is that is extraordinarily difficult to hit that sweet spot on all three disciplines I practice (photography, writing and music) and keep a full-time job. So often, one area of creative work will not live in the sweet spot, possibly two. For my personal situation, that’s ok!

I also tend to get hung up on judging what’s better. That’s when I know I’m in need of a pause or some space. I can come back to something I photographed after a month, for example, and see it with different eyes. I can stop recording music for a month and come back where I left off to see if I’m inspired differently.

So, whether you practice one creative discipline or more, if you're planning your next creative season or just your next week ahead, see how this formula might work for you:

• Create a lot.

• Aim for better than before, even if it’s just a minor improvement. (Don’t over judge this).

• Accept that not everything will be exactly what you hope it to be.

• Take breaks when you feel stuck.

• Keep on creating, whatever the next thing is and no matter how small.

The secret isn’t in the pieces, it’s in the pattern.

Create often.
Create better.
Create now.

Here are some sample images as I focus on this topic:

After 18 months of visiting this spot, I finally got the composition and lighting that I wanted both during the day and at night.

I wanted to capture the kitschy/punchy vibe of this local spot near my house but my desire was to get the proper exposure and white balance on the first shot. Progress, not perfection!

For this last example, I wanted to improve my monochrome images in terms of highlights. Quite often, I’m going for stark contrast and have to be a bit more careful with highlights getting blown out. I took the same shots two days back to back. What I learned was that rainy afternoons will be my best bet for this project. It helps enhance and soften lighting beautifully.

All images © juliettemansour.com

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