Creativity block?

Gray Nelson

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Dec 12, 2010
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How do you guys get over your creativity blocks?

Because after switching to digital photography doesn't feel the same i feel like nothings interesting anymore beside people and dslrs and people don't mix.
 
Go back to basics. Shoot B&W for the form, or shoot colour for the colour.

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I get them all the time. I am not a happy camper when I have them. What I do, is go out and shoot. I try not to think too much about what I am shooting and I just go through exercises, shadows, leading lines, points, negative space, complimentary colors etc. After a while I start having fun again.

Sometimes I take the dslr, sometimes I take the canonet.
 
I don't get stuck often but when it happens I leave the camera at home and just enjoy looking and sooner or later the things I see start to talk to me ( not literally of course) and I get the urge to photograph. I have found that digital lets me take shots that are frequently hopeless but fun. I shoot a lot of film also.

A piece of advice I got from a Japanese photographer was to stop using the camera and just do something else that is fun when you get stuck.
 
My suggestion (i did it years ago and it worked) :
1- go out foe an hour or two (your choice) and of course your camera, possibly just one lens.
2- set an alarm on your mobile phone (or other device) let say each 5 minutes
3- where you are when the alarm rings take a couple of pictures, without thinking too much
4- back home make a selection, one picture each five or six, according to your taste.
5- try to find something in common among these picture (it could be subject, colors, graphic aspect, light or shadows etc) and maybe this could be your theme for the next days. To be further developed with different techniques (es. use vertical where you used horizontal, go very n ear and isolate a detail where you were away from the subject)
Hope it works for you as well, ciao
robert
 
If I don't feel like photographing, I don't force it. However, these days, I just walk the streets of NYC until something strikes me as photograph-able. Some days are better than others.

Go back to film. I'm a firm believer in that the tool does matter. Not with regards to making a good photo, but with regard to comfort and inspiration.

"If you want to change your photographs, you need to change cameras. Changing cameras means that your photographs will change. A really good camera has something I suppose you might describe as its own distinctive aura." -- Nobuyoshi Araki
 
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