I Want to Get Out and Photograph Something…

…but I don’t know what to photograph.

My life as a pho­tog­ra­pher usu­ally involves peri­ods of intense activ­ity fol­lowed by fal­low peri­ods where I’m not shoot­ing much. When I have photo gigs with clients, I have an objec­tive, a sub­ject, a theme. When I am shoot­ing for myself, some­times I am moti­vated by an idea, my own themes, a project, or some beau­ti­ful light.

Then there are times where the weather is right, the light is right, the time is right, and… noth­ing. Some days I feel intensely cre­ative but with­out a muse, and some days I just feel aim­less and blah. There are the times I feel like I should be out, that I should be tak­ing advan­tage of what­ever time or inter­est­ing mete­o­rol­ogy I have at my dis­posal, but I just can’t make it hap­pen. I find myself say­ing I want to shoot pho­tos, but I don’t know of what.

I think it’s impor­tant to have these peri­ods of inac­tiv­ity or cre­ative block–I think gen­er­ally your brain is work­ing in the back­ground, con­nect­ing dots, recharg­ing, link­ing ideas together, what­ever. I think it’s impor­tant to take a rest some­times, even though it is often frus­trat­ing. This week we have had a series of fronts mov­ing through cen­tral North Car­olina, and they have brought some dra­matic weather and light with them. We have had my favorite kinds of clouds, bril­liant blue sky, intense thun­der­storms, the gamut. And I have had after­noon oppor­tu­ni­ties to go shoot, and ample cam­eras and lenses at my disposal.

Yet I have found myself going back to famil­iar places, famil­iar faces, tak­ing snap­shots at gath­er­ings and revis­it­ing things I’ve shot in the past. I feel like I’m not break­ing new ground, or explor­ing new ideas, or advanc­ing my pho­tog­ra­phy. Some­times I look back on these weeks and the pho­tos they produce–because, believe me, I’m still out shoot­ing even when I’m not feel­ing it–and I find some gems that I over­looked. Some­times I groan and and wait for the cre­ative juices to return.

I think it’s impor­tant to keep shoot­ing, even when things don’t line up just right. For one thing, you never know when an oppor­tu­nity might present itself and spark your cre­ativ­ity. If you don’t have your cam­era with you, or if you don’t give your­self the oppor­tu­nity, it will be harder to come by. For another thing, just like play­ing scales, it’s impor­tant to prac­tice on your camera–to build famil­iar­ity, mus­cle mem­ory, com­po­si­tional skills, what­ever. It’s often a good time to work on some­thing you don’t feel like you’re very good at, and get better.

My back­ground is pri­mar­ily in writ­ing and Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture, not pho­tog­ra­phy. One of the lessons I remem­ber best from my days of read­ing and writ­ing short sto­ries, of work­shop­ping drafts and fight­ing through writer’s block, is that you need to be there. You need to sit down, put pen to paper, and start writ­ing. You might write for an hour and end up with trash, or you might write for four and end up with the start of a mas­ter­piece. But you have to have the rit­ual, take the time, make the effort.

I like it when I hold my nose to the grind­stone, keep get­ting out there, and come back with some­thing that I like. Even if it doesn’t fit into some larger schema that I have in my head, even if it doesn’t blaze new trails or sat­isfy some par­tic­u­lar itch I have, I like hav­ing the new work, and to see where my mind was, and to see what I was see­ing. Some­times it really ain’t so bad.

So here’s to hold­ing your nose to the grind­stone. Fight through the pain, fight through the frus­tra­tion. I’m writ­ing this as much for you as for me, as I strug­gle to find my next melody.