Looking

[egpj]

I know that "Looking" is a strange title for a thread but that is exactly what I am doing right now. For the past week I have been suppressing the urge to take my prints out to the bon-fire and just let those babies burn (negatives included). I feel like I need something different creatively. Maybe I have some old creative thoughts and preconceptions that need to be exercised or is that excised. Yesterday and today I went out to the garden with my tripod and camera and started looking for shots. Should not a great photographer be able to capture a photo that is intersting no matter where he is. Really I do not know. I developed those photos this afternoon and just now started scanning them..... but. I do not think it is what I am looking for creatively speaking. I have the burning to go and shot some portraits. I have not done that in some time now. Really it is getting to be a hunger to do that. Anybody else go through this kind of crap or is therapy in order. :bang:

 

[FrankS]

I'm sure it's perfectly natural. Either that, or I'm as sick as you.

For years and years I shot transparency film of slices of nature. I could go out any time and come back with a pretty picture but it became unsatisfying. My rejuvenation came when I switched ot B+W film and began including more people in my photos.

You'd get bored eating the same fare all the time, right? Eventually you'd want to try something new. This restlessness you're feeling is a very good thing IMHO, it means there is growth happening. It may be a difficult time, but you could think of it as growing pains.

At least that's how I look at it. Good luck!

 

[Roger Hicks]

Let it ride. No hurry. The pics you hate today may look good next month.

Meanwhile, keep shooting.

Trust me. This is how I make a living (www.rogerandfrances.com).

Cheers,

Roger

 

[rover]

Instead of burning the negs, re-print them. Make new crops, try new techniques. Look for something new in what seems old.

 

[nomade]

I've been also more fond of natural scenes, and i was shooting hundreds of rolls on that, but then i got bored, it's pretty still, impressionless, mute...The last 2 eyars i started to care more bout people portraits, more moving stuff, even solid buildings, and those nature photos started to look sensational once more...

Maybe i don't have as much experience as u people in the stuff, but i think it's perfectly normal, speaking generally, when u are doing something daily, or even weekly or on regular basis, u get exhausted, u feel no longer creative, no matter how people would open their mouths widely to express how amazed they r...

Don't worry, the bright side is u don't need therapy... 😀

 

[JoeFriday]

I also used to shot a lot of nature shots.. probably because it was easy.. you don't have to worry about catching a flower at the decisive moment, or try to convey what it's thinking

it was around the time that I found this place that my style changed and I became more interested in capturing life as we know it.. we, being people.. I credit most of that to many of the fine photographers here

my point is that it's perfectly natural to change gears once in a while.. it's important to take a little time off to find a new perspective.. find some new artists to study.. a new museum to explore.. rent a DSLR and try out macro photography

don't mistake this for a job.. you don't want to become a disillusioned bitter old photographer who teaches rather than does 😉

 

[egpj]

That is pretty good guys. I think that I do need a change. I might be getting the opportunity to go back to Cartagena, Colombia in the next couple of months. Cartagena offers allot of street life and I think that it sounds absolutely wonderful right now. It is kind of like when you stand in front of the fridge ande just look inside with the door open. Not picking anything out but wanting something.

 

[Fred]

Don't destroy anything, if you are unhappy with some photos today just put em away, after all you don't have to look at them. In a month, year, decade, you might come across those old 'ready for the furnace' shots and see something or remember something and be happy of the memory.

This is arguablely a problem with our digital brethren who delete everything imediately if they are not sure it matches the 'keep' criteria. Those shots are really gone.

Try something different, in this weeks Amateur Photographer (UK) there is a letter that looks at a 'virtual club' where they set themes each week or two. The idea is that you try stuff that you might not have found interesting.

Whatever you decide, please keep on taking photo's

 

[TPPhotog]

Yep been at that stage in the past and at that stage again at the moment 🙁

Also from experience when my first marriage ended nearly 15 years of negs and prints "were lost" thanks to my darling ex-wife :bang:

As already posted don't burn them! I'd recommend put the all away somewhere out of the way until you feel the urge to go back and visit them. After I've souped my negs I usually leave them a week or two before I go back through them and decide what if any to print. The prints are usually then put away for a week or more before I look at them again.

It's interesting what you find that would have rejected on the day you souped or printed.

Also by continuing to shoot you are at least exercising your gear and keeping it in good condition for when you get that artistic rush.

As are the joys and woes of creativity 😉

 

[Doug]

I've been there too, Glenn; maybe you need a "project", a concept to work into. Nature can have a sterile sort of beauty when every sign of humanity is studiously excluded. People pictures of friends and family can be useful records... or they can be more than that, with interest to others as well.

I've started to include signs of humanity in scenics, like fences, power pylons, graffiti... And put my people-pic subjects into their natural environment and hope to catch them doing something characteristic.

I recall a creative writing teacher advising the class to just write for 15 minutes without stopping... Anything, nonsense, even just repeating the same sentence over and over, just to get started. And as the mind loosens up something might emerge!

I'm put in mind of that well-known NYC photog's (Irving Penn, wasn't it?) project of arranging ashes and cig. butts taken from the sidewalks into compositions that were later printed platinum and shown in galleries... Could that have started out as a similar exercise to break out of a creative funk?

Good luck and for sure have fun!

 

[wlewisiii]

Another thing to do is to try something that would be easier with some other camera.

For example, one of the things I'm doing to learn how to really use my Speed Graphic is to use it for family shots of my son. I took the old beast to the water park today, for example and took 6 shots, mostly with some action in them. An SLR and a zoom would have made much easier work of it, but I probably learned awhole lot more about that camera and my 127mm lens this way.

Now hopefully the negs will come out of the D-76 looking right... 😱

William

 

[egpj]

Yep, I used to shoot allot of portraits but then as I read more about getting model release forms (on here as a matter of fact) I tried to switch to shooting stuff that I would not need to ask someone for a signature. That is another reason for my funk. People are just so interesting though. Especially when photographing women. :angel:

Maybe a little portrait project in the states. I am also going to store all the negatives away in a storage box. As some people have recommended. 😀