Do You Have Photographer’s Block?
From The Best of Mark Toal
Just like writers, photographers can suffer from creative blocks. For about a month I just didn’t feel as if I hadn’t seen anything new to shoot. I still had a camera with me all the time but I’ve been turning to my iPhone to take photos or not taking them at all.
Then a couple of weeks ago I was in a group photo show here in Portland and was on a panel discussing our photography. I started to think about what excites me when it comes to photography. (Joe wrote about this subject with “What Inspires You to Make Photographs? Please read it when you have the time.)
So I went back and looked though my favorite photos and one thread of images stood out; I like people who are passionate about what they do. From restoring old trains to building rat rod’s to cowboys. I love getting to know their lives and why they are driven to do what they do.
As I went through this process I found two things that helped to help me think more creatively:
- I stopped reading camera equipment reviews. It’s so easy to fall into the equipment trap and forget what we really use cameras for.
- I turned off the news, both radio and TV and instead played music when I was in the car. Immediately my mind started to thinking of new projects and photos. Don’t worry the world will still be screwed up when you tune back in again.
