Stuck in a creative funk

EcoLeica

EcoLeica

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Hey everyone must have been through periods where they have hit the photography brick wall ( I have it bad at the moment) and just cant seem to find anything that inspires their creative juices and gets them truly excited about photography. So i thought it would be a good idea if people could share their various methods on how to get back into the creative saddle
 
I know what you mean exactly. Painters and poets and songwriters have it too.

Personally I look around at photo places online such as Vazaar and get ideas there for themes that I can pick up and adapt.

Often I just go out with a camera looking for photos. Most times I come back without any photos. That's life.

Finally I go to an art event or museum and enjoy textiles, or ballet, or ceramics. And the next day I may make photos again.
 
peaks and troughs, I find that I just come out of it. Even when I'm not out photoing I've either got my face stuck in a photo book or trawling the web. Sometimes switching cameras helps if you've got that choice, for example this weekend I only shot MF.
 
Good thread for the Photography General Interest Forum.

Oh, and the weather is turning. I don't know if I was in a creative funk, or just suffering for a want for more photo ops. I have gotten out a few time recently and I think things are turning for the well. Doing more shooting of the "ordinary" making the seemingly average to me a little different. Seems to have sparked me a bit.
 
I received the book "Photo Idea Index" by Jim Krause as a gift. It has some great idea starters that have helped inspire me in my own directions. Krause has published similar books on other design areas as well.
 
I view the three artistic grams of my brain as a patch of arable land. If all I do is grow photographs in it, it gets exhausted. I need to plant noises and tastes and smells and textures in it as well, and I need to let them dry up and get plowed under. This strengthens the next crop. So, if (when) the urge to go out and make pictures lags, I don't force it. I just pursue other interests, like going to art exhibits and looking for photography books I've been meaning to read or buy, and/or things totally outside photography like canoeing and hiking and barbequeing and pistol-shooting. Music.

Sometimes, I can be away from photography for years. But it's not like I have a quota to fill.
 
In such cases I pick up a completely different camera like Holga or Lubitel or half-frame-weird something and try to have fun again. Or I just take a little break from photography and try drawing.
 
I get in the car and go some place where the shots are like fruit on a tree. For me Sierra Nevadas, Monterey, any CA mission, San Francisco, or go to the horse races. A change of scenery seems to do it.
 
I’ve had a thirty-some year career being creative for a living, as a 2D designer that is, I found that a big mortgage and children work really well

:D
 
Don't look at others' great photos - it will only make you feel worse.

Take a trip somewhere *without* any photo gear, and just observe.
When you return, eventually you'll start thinking of all those great photos
you *should* have taken...

Chris
 
I do the Weekly Assignment (some weeks) over at Fred Miranda. It's Glass & Crystal this week, a new one will probably be posted on wed-thursday. I go off tangent a lot and end up with odd pics, like for "Insects" is came across two construction cranes that looked like Praying manits arms.

I'd go the opposite way of an exciting place to shoot. Take a mundane thing and shoot the crap out of it by expermimenting with all the photography variables. You might want to shoot digital to keep the cost down. Sometimes what gets my juices flowing is taking something and really delving into it. If you can find the beauty in a trashcan or a piece of litter, you can do anything.

Mark
 
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Have a long hard look at the things around you that you can photograph ... if you feel that they are not worth photographing ... maybe you're in the wrong place? :)
 
Keith said:
Have a long hard look at the things around you that you can photograph ... if you feel that they are not worth photographing ... maybe you're in the wrong place?
Click to expand...

That's a bit extreme. Maybe it's simply a question of buying a new hat?

image.php


(My favorite avatar on this board, after peter_n's and the various cat-manifestators.)
 
Biggles said:
That's a bit extreme. Maybe it's simply a question of buying a new hat?

image.php


(My favorite avatar on this board, after peter_n's and the various cat-manifestators.)
Click to expand...


Meow...

But actually I think Keith is on to something, because I bet if you look you will find something to shoot.

Saturday I took a walk around an old soap factory now turned into apartments. I was disappointed because I could see from the road a water wheel and bridge over the stream, but it is all fenced in and locked for the residence only. Worst was next door, the old Board of Education building. It is a nice old building, but defaced with a modern entry way and doors. Old class ruined for modern energy efficiency. Well, as I walked back away from the factory through the parking lot of the BOE building the sun was shining down through the grate floors and steps of the fire escape. The light and shadows against the brick building was wonderful, and I think I found some nice shots, of some place I would have just previously rather not been.
 
Here is an assignment I give to every class I teach- simple, fast, and sure to make you look through the camera differently- 4 rolls of film in one room in 1 hour. The catch is the room- I have several great rooms on campus that I send folks to- my favorite is a small classroom, with a rectangle of desks all facing in. Windows along one whole wall, chalkboard on one side, strange closet door and angled wall at one end and a projector screen on the other end. A bunch of conduit around on every wall. So, pretty empty, but full of lines and rectangular shapes. This is an eye opener, because after you've made about 10 or 12 frames the 'easy' pictures are shot, and you have a lot of film left to shoot- so you start to just see designs in the most mundane things- usually some close-ups of details, then by the start of third roll the eye starts to open up a little, by the end of roll 3 you are usually really shooting complex stuff of nothing. The fourth roll slowly winds down, and the 'moment' passes. But the idea here is to get into that zone- that zen state of mind where you can just make images intuitively. Well worth 4 rolls of HP5 I say- and I try to do this once a year. I was given this assignment by a professor back in '83 and I redo it every time I hit that wall.
 
I have been there too - others have mentioned the Holga and changing formats - these worked for me (I went through a whole year using nothing but "toy" cameras. Pinholes saved me (a couple of years ago) from my second trough. Using a Barnack Leica got me out of my recent slough of despond.

While all of these worked for me, I think what they all brought with them was a fresh mental approach, so it was probably that that made the difference, not the piece of kit. What does this mean? Well, probably, that a change is as good as a rest (for me at least).

I hope you overcome your block and move on to great things.
 
I'll offer you the age-old cure for writer's block.

Write. Write anything.
Activity encourages activity. Soon, you will forget what you have forgotten, and the words will flow.

So, go burn a few rolls of film on whatever happens to be in front of you. Turn 90 degrees and repeat.
 
Biggles said:
I view the three artistic grams of my brain as a patch of arable land. If all I do is grow photographs in it, it gets exhausted. I need to plant noises and tastes and smells and textures in it as well, and I need to let them dry up and get plowed under. This strengthens the next crop. So, if (when) the urge to go out and make pictures lags, I don't force it. I just pursue other interests, like going to art exhibits and looking for photography books I've been meaning to read or buy, and/or things totally outside photography like canoeing and hiking and barbequeing and pistol-shooting. Music.

Sometimes, I can be away from photography for years. But it's not like I have a quota to fill.
Click to expand...
What you said.

I also find getting together with a colleague-in-arms, sometimes to look over each other's work, but mostly to just hang and rap about whatever, as potentially inspiring.

These days, somehow, my problem is that I have ideas bursting to get out, yet I'm frequesntly hamtrung by timing/scheduling to pursue many of them. Better that way than the reverse, I suppose.


- Barrett
 
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I would listen to Jim Morrison, The Doors, Peace Frog! Dance around the room and smile and laugh!! :D When you are going out to photograph, only photograph a specific color, like RED or something like that, or just practise your boken shots. Bring a your best friend with you.

Cheers
MArk
Quito, EC
 
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