How to overcome a creative rut ?

[Heyiamnate]

I noticed that I haven't shot anything good in the last couple of weeks.
Did one session with a friend but I don't like it so much and one nightclub gig that I hate because I was sick and brain dead.

What do you do to overcome these times of creative rut ? How do you find inspiration\ motivation to keep making good work ?

as usual with creative ruts, gas starts creeping.

On the bright side, I launched a new website and a preset store, so I got that going for me lol.


last portrait session (that I didn't like that much):











--
cheers,
www.heyiamnate.com

 

[yardcoyote]

Do something different for a while, either another kind of photography or another kind of art entirely. Do a creativity excercise: shoot with a single lens of a week, or only squares, or only black and white ... make portraits of all the street signs in you neighborhood, or walk around and photograph every letter of the alphabet, or every cat you know ... any stupid thing that gets you out and doing.

I like revisiting old gear or playing with my toy cameras when I feel like this.

 

[Fujijitsu]

Buy one of those cheap, manual focus, Chinese lenses, and push it as far you can. Working around limitations and exploiting defects can stretch your creativity, like exercising!

 

[Heyiamnate]

Buy one of those cheap, manual focus, Chinese lenses, and push it as far you can. Working around limitations and exploiting defects can stretch your creativity, like exercising!

Do something different for a while, either another kind of photography or another kind of art entirely. Do a creativity excercise: shoot with a single lens of a week, or only squares, or only black and white ... make portraits of all the street signs in you neighborhood, or walk around and photograph every letter of the alphabet, or every cat you know ... any stupid thing that gets you out and doing.

I like revisiting old gear or playing with my toy cameras when I feel like this.

Thanks ! will try
Though even to make a "theme shoot" of like only fall related stuff with fall colors, or maybe 70's fashion ect..

 

[nikkor35f2]

I noticed that I haven't shot anything good in the last couple of weeks.
Did one session with a friend but I don't like it so much and one nightclub gig that I hate because I was sick and brain dead.
What do you do to overcome these times of creative rut ? How do you find inspiration\ motivation to keep making good work ?
as usual with creative ruts, gas starts creeping.
On the bright side, I launched a new website and a preset store, so I got that going for me lol.
last portrait session (that I didn't like that much):





--
cheers,
www.heyiamnate.com

Find some portraits u like and try to shoot and copy EXACTLY what is there, especially the lighting. . As u are copying pay attention to your own thinking and see how u would want to do it different. But don't do it. Just have a journal ready and note down your thoughts. And continue to record other thoughts or ideas that came along.

At the same time, try not to return to ur old ways.. Like if u always place flash high up, see if u could decide on a lighting that don't place flash high up.

Also don't force it, copy the image and just be sensitive to what comes into ur head along the way.

2nd thing u can try. Find. Location w a person in mind and think of 50 different images that u can create without changing outfit. Only changing sittings on location and lighting. Have all 50 noted in your journal as well. 1st 10 is usually easy. The rest you might have to browse magazines internet etc to get ideas and note it down.

Hope it helps.



--
life is short...along the way.. Get a fuji...take some pictures.
surge

 

[Morris0]

Do something different for a while, either another kind of photography or another kind of art entirely. Do a creativity excercise: shoot with a single lens of a week, or only squares, or only black and white ... make portraits of all the street signs in you neighborhood, or walk around and photograph every letter of the alphabet, or every cat you know ... any stupid thing that gets you out and doing.

I like revisiting old gear or playing with my toy cameras when I feel like this.

I agree, this is most effective for me

Morris

 

[tdwesbo]

I find the best way to rekindle your creativity is to teach someone else. Like, lead a local meetup on environmental portraiture, or help a beginner learn about exposure.

 

[Old Timer63]

It happens to the best of us, just like authors they sometimes sit for hrs in front of the computer without typing a word. It will pass. It happens to me for a different reason, I`m getting older and don`t travel very far now and over the last twenty years I have photographed just about everything within 25 miles that moves or doesn`t move so I have to be more inventive. One thing that helps me, I had a camera converted to infrared so on different days with differing lighting I will use my IR camera and look for different subjects until the feeling passes, it works for me most times. I only use a cheap secondhand XM1 that I had converted so it doesn`t have to cost a fortune. Some of my Fujis have in the advanced filters partial colour where you can choose to only show for instance green and the image will be mono with only green showing as colour and if you shoot J peg + raw you get a standard colour RGB raw as a bonus.

A lie down in a dark room might help :-0

Dave

 

[Ed USA]

brought my x-t20 and 16-5o with me to the local pond park mainly to go for a walk, got more pictures of same old Ducks and geese, bla bla...

I find seekiing new locations means a lot, even a day trip can do it. plan ahead what type shoot you want? me I need to get some landscaping in, desert where I live is boring to me for photos for example.

BTW how do you like your 16-50 zoom, I got mine used cheap on ebay, Really sharp an no issues, though I still like primes

 

[bs1946]

A long time ago, I took a composition course being taught by a famous architect and photographer. The first requirement was to use a single 50mm prime for every shot. At the time, I owned two fixed lens rangefinders, neither of which was a 50mm, so, I bought a used SLR with a 50mm lens just to get into the course. It was one of the only two SLRs I ever owned. At the end of class, each week, we were handed a 24 exposure roll of Kodak E200 and were expected to show up at the next class with what we thought were our five best shots. Every slide had its moment on the screen and every one was torn apart mercilessly by the professor. The first week was circles. When we ran out of geometric shapes we moved onto lines of different types, and so it went until the end of the course. When I hit a rut or just can't think of what to shoot, I pick a shape or something else and go out just to shoot that. I still have some of those slides and they make a good reminder.


Circles


Single Lines


More Circles

--
Bill S.
www.flickr.com/photos/wrs1946
instagram.com@billschaffel
“We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.”
– Henri Cartier-Bresson -

 

[dc_tonk]

Taking a moment to step back and get some perspective is always good. When you’re fresh, come back and take a critical look at things.

What is the source(s) of dissatisfaction from your last session? Where would you improve? Model positioning (hands, hair, eyes, clothes / accessories)? Framing / perspective / compression? Content of foreground / background / sides / other non-subject? Other? Enumerating the weakness in your technique is a valuable (and difficult) skill.

Picking one or more here will be good fodder to practice and perfect, much like the aforementioned shapes exercise (colors also work too).

 

[Street_Photography]

Buy a terrible old point and shoot or toy camera and copy the old Digital Rev celebrities with bad camera challenge. I am doing it tomorrow with a friend, should be forced to try new things.

 

[solamnus]

I noticed that I haven't shot anything good in the last couple of weeks.
Did one session with a friend but I don't like it so much and one nightclub gig that I hate because I was sick and brain dead.
What do you do to overcome these times of creative rut ? How do you find inspiration\ motivation to keep making good work ?
as usual with creative ruts, gas starts creeping.
On the bright side, I launched a new website and a preset store, so I got that going for me lol.
last portrait session (that I didn't like that much):





--
cheers,
www.heyiamnate.com

Happenes to all of us freequently

what usually makes me more inspired or get out of a dry spot is either limiting myself as some have suggested here, or look at other photographers work, or giving myself an assigment of some sort. Like try to take good street portraits and bring one lens, or only Shoot architecture and graphic images one day, or try to tag along friends to Shoot their event or sport competition or just anything that gets me put shooting something i Dont normally do that much to challenge me

another thing is to get a new photographic toy that always makes me want to Shoot more at first

--

martinyasmine

Explore martinyasmine’s 2,213 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

 

[Heyiamnate]

Thanks guys these are great ideas !

brought my x-t20 and 16-5o with me to the local pond park mainly to go for a walk, got more pictures of same old Ducks and geese, bla bla...

I find seekiing new locations means a lot, even a day trip can do it. plan ahead what type shoot you want? me I need to get some landscaping in, desert where I live is boring to me for photos for example.

BTW how do you like your 16-50 zoom, I got mine used cheap on ebay, Really sharp an no issues, though I still like primes

I was really satisfied with it but sold it because im not a fan of zooms. Feels like they make me lazy haha

Taking a moment to step back and get some perspective is always good. When you’re fresh, come back and take a critical look at things.

What is the source(s) of dissatisfaction from your last session? Where would you improve? Model positioning (hands, hair, eyes, clothes / accessories)? Framing / perspective / compression? Content of foreground / background / sides / other non-subject? Other? Enumerating the weakness in your technique is a valuable (and difficult) skill.

Picking one or more here will be good fodder to practice and perfect, much like the aforementioned shapes exercise (colors also work too).

I noticed that I just don't know how to position models. I just rely on those micro decisive moments, and often they don't occur or I miss them.
I know that I can produce better work but from a several hour shoot I came up with a samll batch of "okay" photos. That's why I dont like this shoot so much

Buy a terrible old point and shoot or toy camera and copy the old Digital Rev celebrities with bad camera challenge. I am doing it tomorrow with a friend, should be forced to try new things.

That is a GREAT Idea ! Thanks
I might just turn off all the features and lcd display on my T1 and make it a "dumb camera" for this

 

[Canyongazer]

Attend a photo workshop. Different people, different surroundings.

The tricky part is finding the instructor(s) who will inspire you.

For portrait I can recommend Chicago photographer Paul Elledge. Keith Carter is always thought provoking. Both often do a week at Santa Fe Workshops and other venues.

There are many workshops and instructors all over the country but you have to do some research. You can find reviews on line and, of course, view the instructor's work to see if it appeals.

Not cheap, but potentially more valuable than another new lens.

 

[Heyiamnate]

Attend a photo workshop. Different people, different surroundings.

The tricky part is finding the instructor(s) who will inspire you.

For portrait I can recommend Chicago photographer Paul Elledge. Keith Carter is always thought provoking. Both often do a week at Santa Fe Workshops and other venues.

There are many workshops and instructors all over the country but you have to do some research. You can find reviews on line and, of course, view the instructor's work to see if it appeals.

Not cheap, but potentially more valuable than another new lens.

I'm not from the US and here where I live there aren't many workshops, and those that happen are usually basic and made for beginners
Thanks though !

 

[Street_Photography]

I'm not from the US and here where I live there aren't many workshops, and those that happen are usually basic and made for beginners
Thanks though !

From the look of your website you may be doing the "digital nomad" thing. Your photos look like they were taken somewhere like Spain, but if you are in the capital of the world for nomads (Chiang Mai), two or three of us will be visiting Warorot Market tomorrow. If not, I certainly picked up fresh technique and ideas when shooting with someone else. So it is worth seeing if anyone is into photowalks on Facebook locally. Really helps you to be motivated and you get to try different gear.

 

[Heyiamnate]

I'm not from the US and here where I live there aren't many workshops, and those that happen are usually basic and made for beginners
Thanks though !

From the look of your website you may be doing the "digital nomad" thing. Your photos look like they were taken somewhere like Spain, but if you are in the capital of the world for nomads (Chiang Mai), two or three of us will be visiting Warorot Market tomorrow. If not, I certainly picked up fresh technique and ideas when shooting with someone else. So it is worth seeing if anyone is into photowalks on Facebook locally. Really helps you to be motivated and you get to try different gear.

Not a nomad yet but that's one goal for me to become a nomad-photog .

Im from Israel btw. We are TONS of photographic opportunities, they just require time and will. In the past couple of weeks I just haven't been anywhere outside my home town, which is fairly samll (200K people) and I have photographed almost everything here.

Looking for new perspectives

Meanwhile, working on some new presets and learning the tech-y side of running a website.

 

[morepix]

Relax. Two weeks is nothing. Give your creative juices a rest. You're the same you that you were a month ago, a year ago. Just relax.

 

[Fujijitsu]

Buy one of those cheap, manual focus, Chinese lenses, and push it as far you can. Working around limitations and exploiting defects can stretch your creativity, like exercising!

yardcoyote wrote:

Do something different for a while, either another kind of photography or another kind of art entirely. Do a creativity excercise: shoot with a single lens of a week, or only squares, or only black and white ... make portraits of all the street signs in you neighborhood, or walk around and photograph every letter of the alphabet, or every cat you know ... any stupid thing that gets you out and doing.

I like revisiting old gear or playing with my toy cameras when I feel like this.

Thanks ! will try
Though even to make a "theme shoot" of like only fall related stuff with fall colors, or maybe 70's fashion ect..