Motivation, where have you gone?

Jon Claremont said:
Rafael: Doesn't the local minilab do scan to CD?
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I suppose they probably do. Not to start a digital/film debate, but I just have not yet found any need to switch over yet. I know that I will eventually but, to this point, I have been quite happy working entirely with film.
 
Thanks for the information Pesphoto. You may have just inspired me to go buy a scanner! Wait a minute, I thought this thread was about finding inspiration for you...
 
Time's a-wastin my friend. Im off to my lunch break. Raphael, maybe I''ll see if I can shoot a roll of film in less than an hour.
 
I think changing perspective is a good way to recharge creative momentum. Limit yourself to 1 lens, and that a prime. Take pictures only from above, or shooting upwards from below. Shoot only available light. Focus not on objects/people, but the way light falls on objects/people. USe a film speed you've never used before. Stuff like that. best,
David
 
Hi - some great advice here + some suggestions from me:

Remember when photography excited you? Can you recreate those conditions?

Pick a simple theme - a colour, a number, a name, fruit, liquid + shoot a roll of 36 linked to it

Do something you have never done before photographically

Get closer

Get further away

Make one image out of a contact sheet

Shoot one picture at the same time every day for 36 days

Shoot without looking through the viewfinder

Check this:

http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/oblique/oblique.html

Brian Eno uses these random cards to jog his brain into new paths - sometimes they unblock creativity.

Good luck!
 
GeneW said:
6. Document your home town. Nothing fancy, just pictures of streets, buildings (even gas stations and groceries), street lights, landmarks. In 10-15 years it's astonishing how interesting these shots become when things have changed.
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Not just astonishing how things change... astonishing how little I know about the town I've lived in for 10 years. I started taking my camera with me and looking for photo opportunities 2 months ago when I bought my first RF, the Zorki. Of course there's little streets I haven't been in yet, but that's not the only new thing that I saw. I started looking around for passages where cars can pass but that are not streets. Those are very weird places sometimes. I stopped that project because it became boring: too many buildings, too little life. Now I'm noticing more and more that didn't catch my eye before. The tops of buildings are weird sometimes: little gardens and verandas, old facades turned into modern buildings and it only shows at the top where things get ugly... Very difficult to photograph, though :)

So for me, a change of camera (SLR to RF) brought a chance in the way I'm looking, because I can carry my Zorki everywhere easily. Currently, this "different" way of working is gving me GAS, too: I won a cheap iiic with the Summitar I bid on (no slow shutter speeds on the Zorki), now I need a new light meter that can actually measure in the dusk, ... GAS or no GAS, I'm taken more pictures than I've done in a long time. The next major event for me will be "Leuven Kermis" (annual fair here), so I can get all the people photography skills together and see what I can get out of it.

Getting kicked out of the confinement of my way of working has worked wonders. Luckily, I'm free in my photography, no strings attached. I've only done a handful of paying assignments before, so I'm not in your position. But I find assignments make me work in different ways. They spill over in what I do with my regular photography, and vice versa. You say that, when you try something special, the Powers That Be don't like it. Do you ? Then just go for it, and if they order all the other pictures but not that one, then keep it in a special place, the first place where you'll want to look when you're working on your retrospective. Keep that spirit: if you want to try something, do it. It's their choice if they pick that picture or not. If they do, they'll know why and they'll support you to do more of that. It's my motto: do what you like, and you get good at it, and because of that, you'll be appreciated.

I guess that was a rant as good as any other rant... Time to go to bed now :)


Peter.
 
When the doldrums strike, I love to go out and shoot with my buddy. Sometimes seeing what she shoots gives me ideas I wouldn't have thought of. If nothing else I can always work towards some good candid shots of her until she starts swinging her camera bag at me, then I have to go find something else. Fortunately, she shoots a digital "prosumer" camera so her camera bag doesn't weigh nearly as much as mine does.
 
I know the feeling. I too am bored with shooting. No inspiration, no motivation. But I put the camera away for some days (I mean, really out of sight and reach) and I started to see opportunities again. Last sunday morning early I got up and took out the camera to shoot. I rode my bike, shot some pics, enjoyed it all. I don't think I made many real keepers and at the end I felt I was pushing myself again into making pics (a bad thing as it felt I was pushing myself back into the rut), but for some time I had fun. I'm gonna do this more often and hope to get my mojo back before the summer.
 
My secret method for inspiring myself :

get up in the morning, drive down to the park 'n' ride, and take the bus into downtown Seattle. Take the camera along - just one lens and enough film to last me the day. Walk from one end of Seattle to the other. And take my time doing it. And bring enough money to buy a bottle of water or two during the day. No food.

People will see me walk down the street, a random street, and I'll decide to bust down some alleyway, walking slowly, trying to miss nothing. There are many little things that one misses. I was walking through an alley in Seattle - huge vertical walls of glass on either side, and I saw a pigeon flying overhead, black against the bright blue sky and mirrored in the buildings' glass. I missed the shot, but that kind of thing comes along if you spend the day with your eyes open and nothing else to do but explore.

Even if such measures don't inspire your baseline creativity, it will get you out shooting, and that usually sparks it in me when I get my shots back.

It usually takes some effort to get myself out the door to take pictures. Once you're on the bus, no car to park, no easy escape, you have no choice but to spend the day watching the world for photogenic moments.

I find that shooting landscapes doesn't do it for me in terms of motivating my passion to grow. I like them, but something about street photography - about shooting people - ignites it.
 
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Rafael said:
I suppose they probably do. Not to start a digital/film debate, but I just have not yet found any need to switch over yet. I know that I will eventually but, to this point, I have been quite happy working entirely with film.
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No, when you have your negs the minilab will scan them and put them on a digital media, such as a CD, for you so you don't actually need a scanner of your own right now while you get used to Photoshop and uploading and stuff.
 
Pesphoto, I've been there too; it goes in cycles... Lots of good ideas have been offered. One more: Dig out your personal work, all of it. The old stuff too. Look at it with fresh eyes, if you can, as if it were the work of someone else. Sort it, stack it, pick what you think is more striking, interesting, meaningful. This is what I did when I re-cataloged all my old stuff, looking at prints, negative files, and contact sheets while transfering data from 3x5 file cards to the computer. It gave me some insight, and a direction to push.

Given that, now you have the basis for personal projects. IMHO, projects are important. I just ran across a quote from Brooks Jensen, editor of Lenswork, on this subject:

"Work in projects. Make lots of images and look deeper. Allocate time to re-photograph things you've already photographed. Look at the clues in your images and see the things that your photographs tell you they would like to have been. Assume your first photographing session is a warm-up, a sketchpad, a get-acquainted session. Allow the images to unfold as you work the project repeatedly. Learn to be receptive to the inanimate objects around you, because they speak to you as an echo of your subconscious creativity. The same can be said of your photographs. Pretend as though your previous photographs are teachers, not children."
 
pesphoto said:
How do you get it back when it's gone. Lately I just dont have any and can't seem to snap out of it. Am i just whining or do you get the same thing sometimes? How do you snap out of it? Looking at others photos, websites. etc? !
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Motivation comes, goes, comes again and so on. Life runs in cycles, even for photogs.
So if you do not feel like shooting don't shoot and don't think you miss something.
As Winogrand said: While I'm reloading there are no photos". ;)

If you feel like shooting but you have no idea what to do, that's a different thing of course. Happens to me very often. One has to find an idea for any kinda project then.

Photography for me is like a dialog with my environment, or something like the analysis of my individual personal beeing. I photograph it to give my emotions a
visual form.

And so I've always found that the best projects (and the best results) were those who had anything to do with ME personally, and with MY personal environment. Things which concern ME solely.

As long as there is no personal concern the environment is a lifeless scenery, photographically seen a choice of arbitrary issues, suited only for photographical exercises.

In other words the real photos are inside of you, that's where you will find them.

Good luck !

bertram
 
Bertram2 said:
As Winogrand said: While I'm reloading there are no photos"
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I remember reading a magazine interview one or two years ago with a big-name rock photog, and he said the number one thing to know when you're in the pit: Don't EVER look up when you're changing film. You'll regret it every time.

It might be off-topic for this thread, but still good advice for many situations!

Assume your first photographing session is a warm-up, a sketchpad, a get-acquainted session.
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Also excellent advice. Reading this, I realised that that is how I tend to approach a project (when I actually bother to work on a project :eek: ). I never feel like I'm taking the "final" picture; in the back of my head I know I will always want or need to go back to get a better shot.


Good luck with getting out of your photographic drought. It will pass; it always does. :)
 
Wow, this is great! And a big reason why this site is so cool. I think it sounds like we can all benefit from all these ideas at one time or another. Probalby a thread I'll come back to read often when the need arises.
 
I find reading helps. Art books help to.Music.Sometimes picking up a camera I havent used in a while,a different format,a different place.
 
"It is the convenience of traveling that even the ordinary things gain, by newness and surprise, the esteem of an adventure."

J.W. von Goethe, Journey to Italy, Naples, March 9, 1787

So, a photo journey might help you out on that particular problem.

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There is also a Buddhist answer to lack of inspiration. The idea can only be conveyed in form of a dialogue...

Master, I feel a lack of inspiration in my work.

- Who is it that feels inspiration?

Myself.

- As a disciple, you know that there is no such thing as a self. There are only the longings and tendencies that form your personality.

But nevertheless I do feel lack of inspiration in my work.

- Do you love your work?

Yes, but there are times when it gets a bore.

- This means that there are other things that distract you from your work or have become more important in the meantime.

Maybe, Master. May well be.

- Then, if you don't wish to stop the work that you love, make the things that distract you a subject or at least a part of your work.

*********************************************************

Jesko

_____________

2006 AD
800 yrs Dresden
80 yrs Zeiss Ikon
 
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